


Baby Steps

by Narsil



Series: The Youxia Bond [2]
Category: Alien Series, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Continuation, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-25
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:00:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 29,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24363958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Narsil/pseuds/Narsil
Summary: It's been two years since Darth Sidious's unveiling and death destroyed both the Republic and the Confederacy and threw the entire known galaxy into chaos, and the first official envoy from the Jedi Order to the only Youxia Bond in existence, Jedi Master Luminara Unduli, arrives on an Outer Rim mudball looking for answers—only to get caught up in the quest of the Bond for an answer to a question of their own.
Relationships: Anakin Skywalker/Padmé Amidala/Ahsoka Tano/Barriss Offee/Original Female Character(s), Barriss Offee & Luminara Unduli
Series: The Youxia Bond [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1759045
Comments: 22
Kudos: 17





	1. Reconnecting

**Author's Note:**

> So, my first attempt at a short(er) story. If I can pull this off in 20,000 to 30,000 words, I'll have a hope of getting in some more in the future as I finish off my already in-progress stories, both new story and sequel (maybe).
> 
> As with (almost) all my explicit stories, this will be a fanfic with lemon(s), not a lemon fanfic, so don't expect everyone to be hopping into bed every chapter, or even most chapters ... okay, only a few chapters, maybe one, we'll see.

Vrei Qui-Xot sat unmoving in his chair (throne), the Human alone in the control room of the deCrion research station—the _secret_ research station, with an experimental regimen that the Republic would not have approved of, if it had known. In fact, the Republic’s disapproval of that experimental regimen would have been strong enough that if it _had_ known of deCrion Station’s existence, the response would likely have been a Navy task force with orders to bombard it from orbit rather than any of the Patrol’s ships with warrants for arrests and show trials.

Sith alchemy always terrified the weak.

_Not so weak that the Jedi couldn’t kill the Master, were they?_

Qui-Xot snarled at the thought, but couldn’t deny it. The news over the HoloNet had been filled with the revelation that the Republic’s beloved Chancellor was the Sith Lord Darth Sidious, that he had been the one to maneuver the Republic and the Separatists into war in order to increase his own power and to kill as many of the Jedi as possible, before his final strike. The final strike had done its job—the Jedi had been decimated, only a shadow of their former numbers—but now all it was, was a funeral pyre for the last of the Sith ... at least, until the next sapient eager to drink from the well of _true_ power found one of what must be any number of lost sources of the knowledge he needed.

But whoever that was, it would not be Qui-Xot. The latest supply shuttle was over two weeks late; the station had no hyperspace-capable ships of its own, nor the plans or parts to build one; and from the reports of the massive infodump that had accompanied the Master’s death, the only ships likely to arrive were that Navy task force. _But perhaps ... just perhaps ... I can leave a gift for them. If there are no signs of life, perhaps they will send a scouting party rather than bombard from a distance. And then_ —

His snarl turning into a broad, vicious grin, he rose from his seat and strode over to one of the control panels lining the wall, his dark robes swirling about his legs. A few quick finger strokes and the multiple screens lit up, along with the keyboard below them. Qui-Xot gazed for a long moment at the cells holding the creatures that were simultaneously his greatest success and worst failure, biomechanics monstrosities almost absent in the Force, with teeth, talons, whip-like tail, and acid blood, and a voracious hunger that would have made them the perfect weapon to unleash against the hated Jedi ... if only they could be controlled.

Well, that lack of control wasn’t an issue now. He typed in a long password, then when a warning flashed on a screen another even longer password (quickly, one of the security features was a timer on the password entry). An alarm began to whoop but he ignored it, simply stepping back and watching as on all the monitor screens the doors to the cells opened and without hesitation his creations darted out of the cameras’ views. He imagined he could hear the screams of his technicians and scientists as they saw their deaths unleashed.

The other Acolytes wouldn’t be screaming of course, and they wouldn’t just give up. They’d be coming _here_ , where they could enter the codes that would allow them to control at least some of the horrors he’d unleashed ... half, at best, but with control of even as little as a third plus whatever Acolytes still lived, they might have a chance. And that wouldn’t do at all. His lightsaber darted from belt to hand and an instant later humming ruby-red blade was carving deep furrows through the required console before flashing across the room to stab into the control panel by the round door and back to his hand, deactivating on the way. _That_ should do it. They might be able to force open the irised-closed door, but it would take time and they wouldn’t be able to close it again. And while it was possible to jury-rig another console to assume the functions of the one he had just destroyed, it would also take time. He _could_ just destroy all the consoles ... but no, leaving them in place would make this room a trap, with only a single entrance—and so exit—baited by hope. Leave them.

He returned to his seat—his throne—and sat, lightsaber in hand, waiting, until he could sense the desperation of the first of the Acolytes approaching the control room, until they could sense him, his own vengeful delight. Then he lifted his lightsaber, pointed it toward his chest, pressed the stud, and the red blade pierced through his heart and out the back of the throne.

What Qui-Xot would never know was that not _all_ of the irons Darth Sidious had in his numerous fires had been dumped onto the HoloNet—some were never recorded, at least electronically; some records were corrupted by the conflict between Cort’s breaker programs and the Chancellor’s watchdog programs; and some inevitably fell through the cracks, lost in the massive infodump and the chaos as both the Republic and the Confederacy shattered. Giving his subordinates and slaves a (relatively) quick, brutal death was to spare them a long, drawn-out death as their supplies ran out. The Republican (or Separatist) task force never arrived.

/oOo\

_Two years later:_

Jedi Master Luminara Unduli smiled as her tiny ship settled in the empty bay on the anonymous Outer Rim planet—anonymous, because she hadn’t programmed her navicomp for any particular destination, but simply been guided by the Force; and when she’d reached her unknown destination, she’d found herself approaching a planet sufficiently poor that not only did it lack a hyperspace transceiver, it didn’t even have a subspace transceiver. It _did_ have a port beacon, and as she’d approached the strip of land rising from the surrounding swamp (one of few on this particular planet, outside of mountain ranges and ice caps) she’d been able to see the sunken, circular landing bays that many worlds favored. But no traffic control had attempted to hail her nor had she been able to locate a channel to request landing instructions ... apparently, it was a case of grabbing whichever empty bay one wished, and paying attention to the skies when lifting off.

The empty state of most of those landing bays said a great deal about the state of the planet’s economy, or the optimism of the original colonists, or both. Of course, that optimism would have been before Coruscant had dumped she had no idea how many semi-voluntary colonists into the Outer Rim. (The choice between emigration or possible starvation was an easy one, but not exactly ‘voluntary’.) Luminara had no idea what all those untrained, barely prepared colonists—refugees, really—added to the Republic’s and Confederacy’s collapse had done to the Outer Rim’s trade networks but it couldn’t be good, and she was trying not to think about how many of those refugees had died, anyway. She wasn’t surprised that her search for the Youxia Bond had brought her to the Outer Rim, she couldn’t think of anywhere in the galaxy that needed one of its best diplomats and several of its best warriors more.

And they _were_ here. Even if she hadn’t been able to sense her former Padawan through the faint remnants of their Master/Padawan bond, the empty state of most of the landing bays had made it easy to pick out the massive armed freighter they made their home (at least for a tramp freighter, certainly _much_ larger than the Order ship she was using, though at least it was a step up from a fighter—it came with a sleeping berth and galley). Naturally, she had picked a bay adjacent to their own.

Ship settled on its extended landing struts and maneuvering drive shut down, Luminara stretched, leaned back in the pilot’s seat, and grinned as she ‘reached’ for Barriss ... and ‘backed out’ as rapidly as she could, her face a flaming red. There was a good reason why Barriss hadn’t noticed her arrival, and apparently she had joined the Bond. _I wonder how long? And what do I do now?_ She could just sit and wait, ‘reach’ out for Barriss occasionally until she was ... well, done, but she _really_ didn’t want to do that, the first time had been— _Idiot, just because Barriss is ... enjoying herself right now doesn’t mean they_ all _are. And even if they are, they aren’t traveling alone_.

Straightening, she toggled on her ship’s communications. “Ghost of Tom Joad, this is Jedi Master Luminara Unduli, please respond.” She repeated the request several times, pausing between each request, until the view screen lit up to reveal a pure white face framed by platinum blond hair, with two black streaks running from the corners of her mouth to her jaw. Luminara’s jaw dropped—as small as the screen was, the face was instantly recognizable.

Then Asajj Ventress surprised her even more by _grinning_ at her obvious shock. “Welcome, Master Jedi, what can The Ghost of Tom Joad do for you?”

Luminara took a few seconds to collect her wits before replying, “Barriss Offee was my Padawan, now that affairs in the Core Worlds are becoming stable I came to see how she is doing.”

“Really?” Asajj asked doubtfully. “You’ve come quite a ways, You couldn’t simply talk to her over the hypercom? _Tom Joad_ does have one, you know.”

“Yes, I know, I _have_ spoken to her over the hypercom, fairly regularly, and she has seemed happy enough. But that can’t replace actually seeing her face to face.”

“No, I suppose not.” Asajj looked pensive for a moment before shaking off her thought. “I’m afraid Barriss is busy at the moment,” then grinned again when Luminara’s cheeks flamed ... again. “But you already knew that.”

 _What is_ wrong _with you!? Why are you blushing like an initiate being told what all those odd feelings and new obsessions are actually about? It’s not like Barriss joining the Bond is actually a surprise!_ But in spite of the blush Luminara kept her expression serene as she released her embarrassment into the Force. “Yes, I knew through the faint remnant of the bond I once shared with her. It was a bit of a surprise, she left that out of our hypercom conversations.”

Asajj barked a laugh. “Are you surprised?”

“No, I can’t say that I am. Now I’m just wondering how long it’s been.” Luminara hesitated a moment, then shrugged. “May I ask how you aren’t dead?”

“Hmmm.” Asajj considered her for a moment, then glanced to one side and shrugged herself. “They’ll probably be at it for awhile longer, why don’t you meet me at Dex’s Diner and we can talk. It’s on the south edge of the landing bays.”

“Dex’s Diner? Dex Jettster? I thought you—The Ghost of Tom Joad, rather—took him, his equipment, and his employees when it left Coruscant for Naboo.”

“It did. He decided Naboo was too quiet and civilized for him, and asked Anakin if he could come along when the Bond left Naboo for the Outer Rim. Some of his employees came with him.”

“All right, I’ll meet you there as soon as I lock down my ship.”

/\

The woman Luminara was sitting across in a booth as far from the doors to outside and kitchen that Dex’s Diner had was _not_ the woman she had been expecting. Asajj Ventress had been a dangerous enemy and then an ocassional uncertain ally of the Jedi Order until her death saving Quinlan Voss’s life. But when Luminara had encountered her as a Sith apprentice, one thing she had always been was _angry_. The Asajj Ventress sitting across from her carving up a still-bleeding steak (from what animal Luminara couldn’t imagine and wasn’t sure she wanted to try, out here) was ... not _serene_ , by any stretch of the imagination, but ... calm, accepting. A woman that Luminara might actually trust at her back in a battle, if she could trust her not to put the lightsaber on her belt through it.

And she was a woman who knew how off-balance she had Luminara, and was thoroughly enjoying it. She finished chewing her latest bite of almost-raw meat and grinned at her. “You really ought to have tried this.”

Luminara shook her head. “It’s a bit pricey, the Order is trying to keep expenses down in these times.”

Asajj’s eyebrows rose at that comment, and Luminara hid a wince—if the Order was being that stingy with its expenses, then her trip to the Outer Rim clearly wasn’t out of personal pleasure. But the Nightsister let it pass, simply shrugging. “It’s pricey because it’s from a local carnivore ... a rather _large_ carnivore, with hide and skull thick enough to need a heavy blaster—or a lightsaber—to take down. I’ve been supplementing our income by hunting them, this steak might be from the one I hauled in yesterday.” She took another bite with evident enjoyment that had Luminara feeling just a little jealous—the Order’s meals had been _very_ basic since the Shattering—and waited until her guest had some more of her greens (admittedly, delicious in their own way with some unusual spices that Luminara assumed were also local) then said, “So, about what you asked before we came here.” She took the last bite of her steak and leaned back, her eyes losing focus as she gazed into the past as she chewed and swallowed. “Do you know where they buried me after I died?”

Luminara frowned thoughtfully as she tried to remember ... then used a Force technique to dredge up the details of a vaguely recalled conversation. “On Dathomir, in the waters of your tribe.”

“Yes, waters infused with the power of the Mother, the substance we used to create the Water of Life. It seems the Mother decided I wasn’t done yet. I woke up in the pool.” She grinned. “Then almost drowned as soon as I woke up. The Mother has no place for weaklings. After that ...” She shrugged. “I had no direction _why_ the Mother thought I still have a part to play. I made my way off Dathomir, learned of the chaos the galaxy had fallen into, wasn’t sure I would survive letting the Jedi Order know I lived again, but making a living as a bounty hunter had lost any attraction it might have had. Then I heard about the Youxia Bond, and that Ahsoka Tano was a part of it, and decided to look them up.”

“And they just took you in, made you part of the Bond?” Luminara asked, disbelieving.

“No, not a chance,” Asajj replied with a laugh. “Ahsoka might owe me, respect me, even be willing to trust me, but she doesn’t _like_ me, not that much. Anakin even less so except for _maybe_ trust. I was actually surprised that they were willing to trust me enough to allow me to share a ship with their children.

“Besides, even if they’d offered I would have turned them down. How’s Quinlan Voss been doing?”

“He’s been well, if not happy. He wasn’t serving as a general when Sidious activated Order 67, but he’s been busy since.” Luminara considered her former enemy thoughtfully. Quinlan Voss _had_ been busy, taking on the most dangerous, secretive, and now that she thought about it _lonely_ missions he could. Voss could well be suicidal, at least as suicidal as a Jedi was likely to get. But Asajj ... Hesitantly, she asked, “Are you thinking about looking him up, now that the Order will know you’re alive?”

Asajj grinned. “Do you think I ought to, add another couple for the Order to be all scandalized over? And Quinlan not even leaving the Order like Anakin did! I doubt you could afford to expel him, even if he _is_ getting all attachy.”

“ ‘Attachy’? You’ve been hanging around Ahsoka too long. And you didn’t answer my question.”

The grin vanished. “No, I didn’t.” Asajj stared down at her empty plate for a long moment, her emotions—perky and lighthearted a moment before—roiling so much Luminara couldn’t pick out one among the mix ... except for a deep longing that surrounded and encompassed all the rest. When Asajj lifted her head, her eyes shone with unshed tears. “No, I won’t. If Quinlan came _here_ , joined the _Tom Joad_ if not the Bond, I would be overjoyed. But he ... I ... both of us, have been lost in the Dark. Together alone, we would spiral down into the Void and be lost forever—to each other as much as everyone else. And he won’t come here. The Order is his home and his duty, and he will not abandon it ... not with things as they are.”

Luminara scrambled for something to say that wouldn’t sound trite, when she sensed her former Padawan’s sudden shock through the shadow of their bond, mixed with embarrassment _almost_ as strong as her earlier lust.

Asajj was talking on her com, before closing it and placing it back in its holder on her belt. “They’re done.”

“I know.” Luminara’s cheeks were burning again, if not as strongly as before. “I’ll be happy to see Barriss again ... if we can haul her out from under the blankets she’ll be hiding in and out of her cabin.”

Asajj chortled all the way back to the landing bays.


	2. Surprise!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One week since my last chapter! Of course, I pushed to get this one done because next week is my family's summer vacation, so it'll probably be _three_ weeks until my next chapter for _Phoenix Rising_....
> 
> **The first 500+ words are high citrus, NSFW.**

Barriss let her head fall back a bit, enough to suck in air and lick her lips, tasting the juices smeared on her mouth and cheeks before again fastening her mouth on the cleft of the bondmate kneeling above her. Padme gasped at the feel of her tongue on nether lips and clit, and for a moment her hands on Barriss’s breasts paused in their kneading as Padme’s hips resumed rocking, sliding across their tormenting intruder. Through their bond Barriss could barely distinguish the Nabooan’s rising pleasure from the heady mix of that of the other two women of the Bond, from where they’d retired a few minutes ago, abandoning their attentions to her breasts when the pleasure shared through the bond got too much for them. Jenni was on all fours with Ahsoka pounding into her from behind with the dildo—naturally, or Ahsoka’s pleasure would have swamped everyone else’s. As it was, the sensations of the minor shifts of the expanded end of the dildo holding it inside her own sheath was almost as strong as the bondmate she was fucking.

Not as strong as the pleasure Barriss was feeling from Anakin’s own powerful thrusts, of course, the sensations flashing through her with each wet slap of his hips against her thighs. But neither her own body’s unconscious attempts to writhe, nor Anakin’s vigorous thrusting, not even his hands caressing her distended abdomen as he wondered in the sense of their son, could disturb his manipulation of the flow of the Tao holding her suspended over the large mattress with legs spread wide.

Then Padme tipped over the edge, and as happened so often one orgasmic explosion set off a chain reaction flashing through the Bond until all the world was nothing but pure undifferentiated pleasure.

When Barriss came back to herself she was settling on the mattress—she didn’t know how Anakin could possibly keep one of his four lovers buoyed on the Tao’s currents through something like that, but he always did—with a wrung-out Padme lying at her head and Jenni and Ahsoka crawling toward her. Anakin was sitting on her other side, smiling down at them with his hand still caressing her massive bulge. “Not long now,” he murmured.

Barriss smiled back even as she shivered slightly, her sweat-covered body—all of them, really—beginning to cool. “No, not long at all until we’ll get to meet Tutso in person.” She sighed with pure contentment at the love enveloping her from all her bondmates, she had to laugh at her younger self’s fears of attachment even as she’d clung to them like a drowning sentient to a lifeline. “So who’s next—?”

And she suddenly realized that she was sensing one more ‘attachment’ than she’d been expecting, one she hadn’t sensed in years. “She’s here.”

Ahsoka lifted her mouth away from one wet nipple she had resumed paying her respects to. “What?”

“She’s here—my Master is _here!_ Right _now!_ ” And if she could sense her old master ...

Barris manipulated the currents to sweep herself to her feet and yank her robe to her as she headed for the door as fast as she could waddle.

/oOo\

Asajj laughed ... no, she _howled_ , so hard she had to lean back against the wall for support. She managed to gasp out, “I thought you were joking!”

“I was,” Luminara admitted, shaking her head in bemusement. “She hasn’t done this since her earliest days as a Padawan.”

“Hormones,” Jenni said, shooting the pair a sharp glance before returning her attention to the door to Barriss’s room. “Barriss, she isn’t going to leave without seeing you, you can’t hide forever.”

Luminara couldn’t hear Barriss’s response, she assumed Jenni was communicating through the Bond, and speaking out loud out of courtesy.

“No, we aren’t going to toss her out of the ship, she’s come a long way to see you and you’re being childish. Now get out here.”

If there was more silent communication, neither Jenni nor the other members of the Bond standing close by bothered to speak their side out loud, but eventually the door slid sideways and Luminara froze at the figure of her former Padawan standing there—the _very pregnant_ figure. _Well, that explains her embarrassment and Master ... and Jenni’s comment about hormones_ , she thought distantly as she fought through her shock. Pregnancy was virtually unknown in the Jedi Order, at least for Humans and those species that those in the know about what Jenni’s existence and the archeological findings on Terra signified now knew to be offshoots of Humanity. Only Order members of those species whose biology included heat cycles that couldn’t be repressed and pregnancies that couldn’t be prevented willingly produced children (at least, weren’t _supposed_ to, Luke and Aja’s existence showed that wasn’t always the case), and it was _very_ hard to rape a Jedi ... harder than killing one.

All of which made pregnancy a sign of one’s failure as a Jedi, either through gross incompetence or a failure of self-discipline.

Then she sensed the fear seeping through their shadow of a bond, fear that had to be as overwhelming as Barriss’s initial embarrassment just to be strong enough for her to feel it. Luminara forced herself to move, stepping forward to pull Barriss into a hug—something she’d never done through all the years Barriss had been her Padawan, much less the years since.

Barriss stiffened, then slowly relaxed as Luminara held on, then finally returned the hug for a moment before pushing her former master away.

“So there’s no point in asking when the baby’s due, the answer is obviously ‘soon’,” Luminara said with a smile that felt only slightly forced. “Though I have to say I’m a little surprised. I would have expected you to either have joined the Bond earlier or be using birth control. I suppose congratulations are in order ... _are_ congratulations in order? Is this what you want?”

Luminara was happy to feel Barriss’s mounting fear vanish as the former Knight sensed the honesty of her response, and a smile spread across her face that looked more natural than Luminara’s had felt as a hand rose to rest on her bulging abdomen. “I was on the Youxia Bond birth control—letting the Tao’s currents sweep you where they will. It still took half a year after I joined for me to become pregnant and I’m the first. Padme and Jenni are still waiting for their turns ... well, Padme for her second time. Everyone really expected Jenni to be first, considering I hadn’t joined the Bond yet and Padme was still breastfeeding, that it was me was a surprise.” Her smile vanishing, she added, “And yes, it’s what I want. After what I did to Ahsoka and the innocents I killed ...”

Ahsoka stepped forward and pulled Barriss into a one-armed hug, and Barriss leaned her head against her still-shorter bondmate’s for a moment before straightening. “So, Master, it’s good to see you again ... now. You can see how things are going here, how are things going Coreward?”

/oOo\

Asajj leaned back in her couch seat and tilted her head back to stare up at the common room’s ceiling. Padme had suggested they take over the common room and share some drinks while while everyone got caught up on what they hadn’t been willing to share over the hyperspace transceiver. Asajj had tried to leave them to it, but Jenni had insisted they join her. The time-lost Human had been doing her best to make Asajj as much a part of the team as a Force-sensitive that wasn’t part of the Bond could be.

(Once it had become clear just how thoroughly Darth Sidious had compromised the hyperspace transceiver network—and that others could as well, if not as thoroughly—people had become reluctant to use the network to share truly important ... or private ... information. Asajj had actually made a decent living for a time after her resurrection as a courier for one of the courier companies that were springing up across the slowly recovering trade routes. And she’d been bored to tears, more than happy to head for the Outer Rim when she heard of Ahsoka and her Bond.)

“ ... and it was heartwarming to see the crechelings’ faces light up when we dropped out of hyperspace at Terra. Even with the Shroud lifted from Coruscant, the Capital with its billions of sentients can’t match an entire planet that’s a Light Side vergence.” Unduli frowned thoughtfully. “There’s still some debate among the Council, but once we have the defenses at Dantooine that match what we’ve set up at Terra we’ll probably move them there when they’re old enough to become Initiates—as soothing as Terra is for any Jedi, the rest of the galaxy isn’t like that and they will need to be accustomed to it when they are chosen as Padawans. By the way, thanks again for suggesting Dantooine as a headquarters for the clone troopers that didn’t want to continue service with the Republic, the base we’d left behind and forgotten about has come in handy. The Order has hired some of the new mercenary companies that have been forming, most of the 501st for one,”—she smiled at Anakin and Ahsoka when they raised their own bottles with shouts of approval—“ for a number of jobs, and we already have a Temple in all but name setting up there. It may well become the Order’s central Temple eventually.”

“Wasn’t it dangerous moving the crechelings?” Padme asked, frowning. “Even after Darth Sidious’s records showed he was deliberately turning popular opinion against you, the Order still has a lot of enemies out there. And with the explosion of piracy it wouldn’t be hard to set up plausible deniability.”

Unduli grinned. “Still getting updates on the political situation from Naboo?”

“Yes, the occasional courier shows up with an update, when I let them know we’ll be here for awhile,” Padme admitted, shrugging. “Queen Apailana likes me.”

“Yes, well, in this case you’re out of date, at least about the piracy. Between local systems arming themselves and beginning to patrol and Jedi riding along on merchant ships, the pirates are beginning to pull back toward the poorer, less travelled routes again. That’s actually why I was able to visit, I’ve been spending the last half-year on escort and the threat has dropped enough that the masters, at least, can be shifted to more important but less urgent tasks. But at least that escort duty, along with the way we’ve been helping _all_ the forming Successor States as best we can and our refusal to be part of the Senate’s attempt to convince systems to stay in or rejoin the Republic,”—the _Old_ Republic, a number of Successor State newscasters were beginning to call it—“has been doing much to undo Darth Sidious’s propaganda campaign.”

And that was it for Asajj. The catching up part had been entertaining and often hilarious to listen to, though she hadn’t had much to contribute herself seeing how most of her past with the Bond and everyone they knew involved trying to kill them (and sometimes succeeding—that Anakin, Ahsoka and now apparently Unduli were willing, much less able, to forgive her was still a daily source of amazement). And the part of Asajj’s past that didn’t involve shared acquaintances wasn’t anything to laugh at, though she did manage to dredge up a few stories of her first apprenticeship, with Jedi Knight Ky Narec, that had been worth at least smiles and a few chuckles/giggles. But ... “Now you’re getting into politics, I’ll leave you to that.” Besides, there were things they were going to want to discuss without a former Sith around—they were accepting beyond belief, but they _weren’t_ stupid. She finished off the last of her bottle and put it down on the center table with the rest of the festivity’s victims clustered beside the almost-empty plates of snacks and finger foods the Bond had fetched from their ‘party room’, then pushed herself to her feet.

Padme glanced up at the chronometer on the wall. “Check in on Luke and Aja, maybe tell them a story. They won’t be expecting us on one of our Bond days, but they’ll appreciate a goodnight kiss from their Auntie ‘Sajj.”

“What!?” Asajj’s gaze snapped to the chronometer. “Kark! I forgot!” She bolted through the door, running for the main hold.

As she jumped through the hold’s still irising-open door, Keda Meriet looked up from the ‘pad she was reading and grinned. Rising to her feet, the purple-haired Dex’s Diner waitress called out, “Hey, Asajj! Forgot about my hand-to-hand training, didn’t you? Not surprising, considering who you ate lunch with.” She glanced back down at her ‘pad for a moment. “Come on, let’s tuck Luke and Aja into bed, then we ought to have time for an hour or so before I have to turn in myself, I have a morning shift.”

/\

The door slid shut behind Ventress, and Luminara felt a barely noticed tension ease. Even before her lunch with the apparently _former_ Sith she hadn’t been worried about being attacked, not with the lack of warning from the Force supplemented by Ventress sharing living space with Anakin and Padme’s children, and the Order was all about second chances when the opportunity arose to offer them ... but that didn’t change the fact that their first meeting had involved Ventress trying to kill her and her instincts hadn’t forgotten.

_It’s a good thing the Order’s training focuses so strongly on trusting the Force instead of our instincts_.

Luminara smiled at the thought as she killed off her own bottle and leaned forward to add it to the other victims on the table, grabbed another, and looked around as she straightened ... and instantly turned her attention inward to fall into the _very_ light healing trance needed to get rid of the buzz she’d developed through the afternoon’s drinking. The drinks had been barely alcoholic at all, Jedi (and former Jedi, it seemed) considered drunk Force-users both a scandal and a danger—but the expression on Padme’s face was that of the diplomat, not the young wife and proud (if sometimes exasperated) mother the Jedi Master had spent a pleasant afternoon and evening with.

Something Padme proved with her next words. “So what brings you to us that is ‘more important but less urgent’?”

Luminara winced at her own words repeated back to her, she must have been more buzzed than she thought. “I can’t tell you, not yet. It doesn’t involve danger for your Bond—or your crew—and may be a benefit for us all, but I can’t speak of it yet.”

“I see.” Padme gazed thoughtfully at her for a long moment, then exchanged glances with the others (a courtesy, considering what Luminara had heard of their almost-hive mind). “Jenni?”

The Terran closed her eyes for a moment, taking on the calm of a trance, then opened them again. “Master Unduli was what we were waiting for, it’s time.”

The others relaxed (especially Ahsoka, Luminara noted), and Padme turned back to her. “Fair enough, Jedi know their own business. But it seems your arrival has involved you in _our_ business. We have a mission, but the currents were idle, waiting for something—you, apparently. Would you care to join us?”

Luminara gazed back for a moment as she sought guidance from the Force herself ... yes, this was part of why she was here. She nodded. “I’m in. What’s the mission.”

They exchanged glances again, before Padme replied. “It’s an information retrieval mission, we don’t know where or what form. And it’s personal. And—” her lips stretched into a smirk. “—that’s all we’ll say at the moment.”

Luminara barked a laugh. “Fair enough. When do we leave?”

“Now,” Anakin replied, rising to his feet. “I’ll start up the engines. Jenni, get our course plotted. ‘Soka, let Keda know we’re leaving and she’s coming with us if she’s serious. Padme, let Dex know he’s out a waitress for awhile.” As the others headed for different doorways he turned to Luminara, also now on her feet. “I’ll send you the course for your navcomp as soon as Jenni sets it.”

Luminara nodded and turned for her own doorway. “I’ll be ready.”

/\

In her tiny ship’s cockpit strapped into the pilot’s seat, Luminara whistled softly as she reviewed the course Anakin had just sent over to her navcomp ... the _very convoluted_ course. “This is Master ... this is Jenni’s work?”

“ _Yes, and don’t let her catch you calling her Master, use Sensei instead_.”

“What does that mean?”

“ _Essentially the same thing in her own language, but it allows her to ignore her real status_.”

“Really? Because plotting out a course like this from the Force’s guidance is a Master’s work whatever she may think. Do you know what’s at the end?”

“ _A system number and_ very _basic survey data from the only survey ship to pass through a few centuries ago_.” Unmentioned because it was obvious to both was that with a single pass centuries back the system had to be lifeless ... exactly the kind of random hole in space that organizations wanting to hide things while having access to basic mineral resources would use. “ _Since the last jump terminates at an asteroid field we’re probably looking at a hollowed-out asteroid base, but that’s just a guess_.”

“But a good one.” Luminara checked the first jump’s time stamp. “I will check in with you in 7 hours.” Not something she would have said if Anakin and Ahsoka had still been members of the Order, standard protocol during the war had been for ships traveling together to check in with each other after each jump and the Order—finding itself still often working with units of clone troopers—had kept up the practice. But it _had_ been years for the two since they’d had to worry about more than one ship....

But if Anakin had forgotten he didn’t say, simply acknowledging her statement as the _Ghost of Tom Joad_ lifted off and headed for space with Luminara’s ship right behind it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, Barriss's baby boy is named after Tutso Mara, the Jedi who trained with Barriss and taught her how to properly hold a lightsaber. He was killed in the bombing she helped orchestrate.


	3. Pit Stop

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are a couple paragraphs toward the beginning of the chapter that are NSFW.

_Thirty-seven hours later:_

The soft alarm sounded, and Luminara Unduli slowly surfaced from her meditation. Uncurling and rising to her feet, she strode out of her tiny living quarters (practically a closet, with bunk and desk designed to fold up into the walls and only a tiny shelf and drawer for a few changes of clothes built into the same). Following the short corridor to her ship’s cockpit, she slid into the pilot’s seat before grabbing the seat’s battle harness. She had just finished strapping herself in and returned her focus to the swirling chaos outside when that churning gray turned into the familiar instant of white streaks before she was again looking at the unblinking stars of realspace. For a moment she reached for the whisper of the faint bond she shared with Barriss, and sighed with relief when she found it.

The relief at the sight of the _Ghost of Tom Joad_ not far ahead of her was as strong as the anxiety that she had had to constantly release into the Force throughout the jump.

After taking a moment to release that relief into the Force to join her former fears (if she was being honest with herself, as she usually tried to be), Luminara toggled her ship’s coms. “ _Tom Joad_ , is everything all right over there?”

After a moment Padme’s voice came over the com. “ _Everything’s fine here, why do you ask?_ ”

And with that the last of Luminara’s tension vanished. She hadn’t sensed anything untoward from Barriss now that they were out of hyperspace, and the ships were close enough that if anything serious had happened to her former Padawan she would have, but the verbal confirmation was welcome. “Because just as we were going into hyperspace I saw something attach itself to your ship.”

“ _You did? I’m not sensing any shifts in the currents. Where?_ ” Padme’s voice had sharpened, and Luminara could imagine her straightening in the pilot’s seat as she came alert. The former Queen and Senator from Naboo had proven multiple times during the war that she was more than a diplomat and manager, and Luminara doubted her time with the Youxia Bond in the Outer Rim had changed that.

“At the back, just to the left of and above your ship’s thrusters.”

“ _Where it would be difficult to detect when we’re running the engines and unnoticeable from below when we’re grounded, and where its internal sensors can detect changes in vector and its external passive sensors can detect when we enter and exit hyperspace_.” And so plot the ship’s course without radiating active—and so easily detectable—sensors. No, Padme definitely hadn’t lost her edge with motherhood.

“Or where a bomb could destroy your engines.”

But Luminara was tossing that out as much to be complete, Padme’s instant reaction agreed with her own thoughts. “ _Unlikely, or it would have gone off while we were in hyperspace and would be lost somewhere between the stars if we survived at all ... and Jenni, at least, would have sensed the threat. Though I suppose someone might be getting overly clever and have it set to go off when we investigate it, hoping to kill one or more of us at the same time. But not likely_.”

“No, not likely,” Luminara agreed. “I’ll be waiting to hear what you find.”

/\

Asajj’s breath was a staccato hiss at the rising pleasure flashing through her as she bounced on Threefer’s hips. Her head was thrown back and eyes closed, her hands clenched around his wrists as she held his hands trapped against the breasts he was mauling. Then she slammed down one last time and froze, every muscle taut, as that rising pleasure erupted, blasting through her, leaving her light-headed as if that eruption had blown through the roof of her skull.

Threefer slipped his hands around from her breasts to her sides and gently pulled her now-shuddering body down so sweat-slick skin rested on sweat-slick skin, and waited. Eventually her shuddering eased, and he began to gently thrust his hips until she felt his own eruption filling her to overflowing, oozing out around the intrusion filling her sheath to slicken hips and thighs even more than they already were with her own juices.

She smiled against his neck. “I’m surprised you have so much. I would have thought having Keda along would have at least emptied you, even if she hasn’t worn you out.”

He chuckled, his warm breath ruffling her platinum blond hair. “She’s being all serious about ‘the mission’, even if she doesn’t know what it is,” he murmured. “Besides, she’s been fascinated by Ahsoka and Jenni’s project.”

“Oh, did they read her in on Jenni’s history?”

Asajj felt Threefer’s surprise through their cooling skin-on-skin. She wondered sometimes what it would be like to feel that all the time, especially during sex—she’d seen ... and sensed ... the Youxia Bond after their ‘bond’ time, and it seemed like fun. _Quinlan would—_ She cut off the thought with practiced ease, pushing away the old pain. _What did he ask? Oh, right_. “A bit. She knows Jenni is the sole survivor of her homeworld, and that Jenni and Ahsoka are recreating that homeworld’s musical heritage, as much as Jenni can pull out of her memory and share with Ahsoka. Keda’s been watching them try to coax the music out of _Tom Joad_ ’s entertainment suite.”

“Right, no jokes about time travelers. Have they come up with any new music worth sharing?”

Asajj made a face. “No, right now they’re working on a style called ‘Metal Jazz’. Jenni called it ‘an industrial accident you can swing to’, whatever that means. But from her pinched expression I’d say she doesn’t enjoy it any more than I do and she’s just being a completist. Lucky for us, she said she’d only heard a few complete pieces so we should have the common room back—”

The intercom’s alarm cut her off. Though it was the ‘attention needed _now_ ’ tone, not the ‘grab your lightsaber and _run_ ’ one, so it didn’t jerk her to her feet. As she and Threefer sat up, Anakin’s voice replaced the alarm. “ _Asajj, we got a call from Master Unduli, something attached itself to our hull just before we went into hyperspace_.”

Asajj’s eyes widened. She hadn’t gotten a hint of any threat ... and more to the point, so far as she knew neither had Jenni, and she couldn’t think of a reason that the original Terran wouldn’t share if she had. “Where do you want me?”

“ _I have the pilot seat, Ahsoka is on the way to take the copilot’s seat, Jenni and Padme will be checking on whatever Master Unduli saw. You and Threefer have the closest ventral and dorsal guns, the rest of the squad are headed for the others_.”

Barriss would be headed for the ship’s small infirmary, of course, both because of her pregnancy and her skill as a healer, and the babies would be with their nanny/bodyguard, Defenate. “Where’s Keda?” Asajj pushed off the bed and began grabbing clothes from the floor where they’d been scattered an hour or so ago.

“ _In the cockpit, she was in the seat behind Padme watching the drop from hyperspace_.”

“But Jenni hasn’t sensed anything?”

“ _Not a twitch_.”

So this was almost certainly just an exercise, she had never seen _anyone_ with a sense for danger like the Terran. Which was probably why Asajj was headed for a ship’s gun instead of the cockpit, where the third best pilot should be. (Second best, when they weren’t in combat and Jenni was ‘surfing the wave’, as she’d once irreverently put it, to Padme and Ahsoka’s amusement.) Good thing, too. While Jenni was thoroughly acquainted with the smell of sex in general and Keda was familiar with Asajj’s post-sex scent in particular from the couple of times they’d shared a romp, that wasn’t the perfume you wanted to take with you into a cockpit rather than sharing a bed (or chair, or table, or workbench ...). For that matter, they’d have to air out her turret.

Asajj clinched her belt tight and hung her lightsaber on its fastening and glanced over at Threefer. He’d apparently come to the same conclusion on the lack of danger as she had, because he was taking the time to get his boots on rather than just head for the ship’s guns barefoot. “We’re on our way.” Anakin acknowledged and the almost nonexistent buzz signaling an open intercom vanished. Asajj reached out with the Force to pull Threefer to his feet. “Come on, slacker, let’s go.”

/\

As the best pilot in any kind of defensive combat situation, Jenni really should have been in the co-pilot seat next to Anakin. If there was any hint of attacking starships she would have been. (Ahsoka and Anakin had actually modified the controls, so with the press of an unlocked button the co-pilot could take control—allowing Anakin with his years of experience to make attack runs while Jenni could make any needed defensive maneuvers when the current’s shifts whispered a warning only she in the Bond could sense.)

But this wasn’t any sort of combat engagement, much less a ‘furball’. And since Padme, with her ability to sense the minutest details of electronics of all types, was the logical one to investigate whatever had attached itself to the _Tom Joad_ , as much as Anakin wished otherwise Jenni was the best choice to have Padme’s back.

Padme finished checking the last seals on Jenni’s enviro-suit, and sent, ‘ _You’re good, let’s go_.’

‘ _Right_.’ She took a deep breath, allowed Anakin’s growing fear to flow through her and out to mix with the currents (something she’d picked up from the Bond’s former Jedi; as much as she disagreed with the Order’s stance—or was it _previous_ stance?—on emotions, there were times ...). Head mostly clear, she tapped the controls of the airlock. “We’re on our way.” Verbally this time, so those not in the Bond could know what was going on.

A few minutes later the pair were clumsily walking along the hull toward where Master Unduli had reported seeing whatever it was. (Even though they’d practiced, there was no way _not_ to walk clumsily in magnetic boots.) Finally, Padme stopped and pointed at an odd spike on the hull casting a sharp shadow in their helmet lights a few meters away, just above and to the left of the thrusters as Master Unduli had said. “Is that it?”

Anakin was observing through one of their helmet cameras, and his reply was instant. “ _That’s it. It’s designed to look like a sensor spike, but we don’t have one there. Whatever it is, it doesn’t belong_.”

“ _Right, checking it now_ ,” Padme replied as she started walking forward again. Jenni focused, ready at the merest hint of danger to sweep Padme toward her—to push them both off the hull if necessary; even if the _Tom Joad_ ’s engines were disabled they had a couple sleds on board for zero-g work, and if the transponders in their suits failed any of the other three members of the Bond could find them.

But first she had another problem. ‘ _Anakin, calm yourself. I understand your fear, but it is interfering. Let it mix with the current_.’ Anakin didn’t reply but the sense of growing fear faded, replaced by a hint of gratitude—probably because Jenni had kept her gentle slap on the wrist private. Over the past two years they’d learned that Anakin was all right even when Padme was in danger—calm and controlled ... mostly ... usually—so long as he was in a position to _do_ something about it, or at least could share in the danger. But when he wasn’t, the Bond’s shared eddy in the Tao’s current could get ... tense.

Their eddy again mostly calm, Jenni could focus on the current sweeping them along, looking for any hint of turbulence warning of danger ... nothing.

Then Padme was exercising her own talent in reading that current, seeking out the impressions left by the device in front of them, and by its designers and users. “ _As we suspected, it’s an inertial tracker, designed to measure our course entering and leaving hyperspace as well as in normal space, and our time in hyperspace. Once it recognizes that we’ve returned to Jussul it’s supposed to detach and drift. It also has a com connected to a transponder that will activate when it receives the correct code. No active emissions to be detected, no threat to the ship to cause turbulence in the Tao, somebody was clever. Not to mentioned skilled, to cram all that into what space is available, it must be pretty well armored_.” Padme unhooked her lightsaber from her belt and it sprang to life. “ _Give me a moment, and_ —”

“No!”

Silence stretched for a long moment before Master Unduli asked, “ _No?_ ” Jenni hadn’t realized the Jedi had been patched into the coms, though she should have. Though she could offer the excuse that the Youxia Bond usually worked alone.

Shocked at her own unexpected command, Jenni turned her attention inward, seeking to immerse herself in the all-encompassing Unifying current that she had learned of from Ahsoka. She couldn’t take the lotus position like she usually did for this, but the currents were free from the pollution inflicted by Darth Sidious’s Shroud and the fact that she was on a ship in deep space actually made it easier for some reason—less mixing with the currents of the Living Force so focused on the Now, perhaps? “Noooo,” she said slowly. “I don’t know why, but it’s important. We need to leave it in place.”

There was a moment of silence as the Bond all reached into their shared ‘eddy’, the mix and interplay of their emotions—fear/doubt/concern/certainty/curiosity/determination/love/trust—all mixed and circled, more quickly even than the conceptual communication that underlay speech, until consensus was reached.

“ _All right, get back inside_ ,” Anakin said for the benefit of those outside the Bond that were listening in. “ _We’ll check the will of the Force again at the next point in our route_.” (For some reason Anakin probably didn’t understand himself, he preferred to stick to the terms the Order used for the Tao, rather than adopt those Jenni had brought with her into her distant future.)

“ _On our way back_ ,” Padme agreed, turning to rejoin Jenni, and the pair clumped their way back to the airlock.


	4. Arrival

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short, I know, but it's here! And hopefully I can have the next chapter for _Phoenix Rising_ up in a few days and another for this story done by next weekend.

A soft alarm chimed. On one side of Barriss’s chair Luke kept splashing colors across the pad on the floor in front of him with swipes of his hands across the touch-sensitive screen, but on the other side Aja looked up from the game of blocks she was playing—Barriss was certain it was a game, she thought she could see a pattern in the placement of the multi-colored squares and rectangles, but she hadn’t worked out Aja’s rules yet. “Mama Barry, go away?”

Barris reached down to ruffle her hair, smiling at Aja’s whine even as she sensed the toddler’s happiness spike. “Yes, Aja, Mama Barriss has to go. But Auntie Nate will be here, and Mama Padme and Papa will be here after your nap. Okay?”

Aja pouted and muttered, “Okay.”

“Come on, give Mama Barris a hug. You too, Luke, you can finish your image after your nap.” Aja got up long enough for Barriss to sweep her up into her arms, then started to put her blocks back in their box, as Barriss floated Luke over to her for his own hug. Barriss deposited him next to his sister after their brief but heartfelt embrace and a kiss, then swept herself to her feet (controlling the Tao’s currents was useful for advanced pregnancies, she didn’t know how the non-Dancers dealt with it) and looked over at the redheaded apparent-Human standing by the door. “Defenate?”

“I will get them in their nap-beds and asleep while I watch over them. They will be fine.”

“I know,” Barriss assured the former protocol droid, “but any mother is happy to hear that.”

“I understand. Biologics are strange.”

Barriss laughed softly as she left the nursery. D-FN8 might mutter about how weird hormones made ‘biologics’, but she was as devoted to the twins as everyone else on board the _Tom Joad_. The children would be safe in the emergency life support cubicles attached to the nursery that they regularly took their naps in to keep them accustomed to the enclosed spaces, not even noticing the slight addition to their air that would keep them peacefully asleep. And with D-FN8 watching over the babies, ready to deal with any threat that might reach them or to evacuate with the emergency cubicles if necessary, the Bond could focus on whatever they found when the _Tom Joad_ dropped out of hyperspace at their destination. Even if she (and it was definitely _she_ ) looked and sounded fully human, Anakin had made their babies’ nanny a personal project for years and by now Barriss suspected she could take down anything short of a droideka.

Meanwhile, Barris had her own duty station, in the command center where she could monitor the cameras on everyone’s enviro-suit while they explored the base. Assuming there was a base, which they were.

/\

Keda slid into the seat behind Anakin in the pilot’s seat, her eyes on the churning mass of gray beyond the cockpit’s transparisteel windows. That view disturbed some (okay, a lot) of people, but she found the constantly shifting patterns of gray fascinating. Or perhaps it was just that it symbolized her escape from doing the same thing day after day, smiling at customers until it hurt? Any road, it wasn’t her favorite part of the trip.

Jenni, in the co-pilot seat, was watching her out of the corner of her eye, smiling. Keda imagined that the empathic Old Terran (whatever _that_ was) was enjoying the anticipation she had to be radiating. Though of course, she could sense _that_ with her eyes fixed forward, she was watching to make sure Keda got strapped in properly. As soon as the last buckle clicked shut Jenni nodded and turned back around to face forward.

“I hope everyone is where they are supposed to be,” Anakin announced, his voice sounding in Keda’s earbud, “because we’re leaving hyperspace ... now.”

In a moment the churning gray turned into the split-second of bright streaks that Keda loved before settling down into the unblinking starlights of space, except this time rather than the uninterrupted star field she’d seen in deep space or the green-blue-white orb of their arrival at Jussul when _The Ghost of Tom Joad_ had delivered Dex, his equipment, and those of his people that had chosen to follow him to the Outer Rim, _this_ star field was broken by a scattering of irregularly shaped holes of empty black.

“We’re here, and ... so is Master Unduli,” Anakin said. A long beat ... “Master Unduli, I’ve patched you into the coms.”

“ _Thank you. So the asteroid cluster from the survey is still here, which one do we want?_ ”

“Let’s find out. Jenni?”

“Taking control.”

The view shifted as _Tom Joad_ swung wide and up around an invisible center of the holes in the star field, then turned toward them even as the ship slowed, easing her way between the free-floating mountains, finally at an angle that Keda could see half of them in their sun’s faint light.

Jenni slowed the _Tom Joad_ even more, Master Unduli in her own ship shadowing them, until they seemed to just barely crawl along. “Fast is dangerous,” she reported, “I’d guess some form of automatic defenses tied to motion sensors.”

But as slow as they were moving—main engines down at this point, coasting with maneuver thrusters as they slipped around one floating rock after another—in the heart of the cluster a truly massive asteroid soon came into view, almost large enough to be spherical. “That’s it,” Jenni reported again. “Now let’s find the entrance. It looks like all these asteroids are tidelocked, so it’s probably on the night side.”

Anakin pressed a button on his console and grasped a stick that rose up as a light sprang to life below the cockpit, it’s beam sweeping over the asteroid’s surface. “I have the spotlight.”

Keda leaned forward so she could see better through the transparisteel panels, then noticed a small viewscreen on Anakin’s side of the console from a camera apparently slaved to the spotlight. She asked, “Why is the entrance probably on the dark side?”

“Both easier to hide and easier to find,” Jenni replied. “Someone friendly coming in, you have a lighted landing bay framed by all the black. You want to hide it, you turn off the lights and shut down any power sources that aren’t shielded— There!” An angular corner had flashed across the circle of light playing across the rocky surface. She brought _Tom Joad_ to a halt even as the spotlight swept back to a rectangular outline of black that seemed to swallow the spotlight’s beam. As the _Tom Joad_ drifted back, the blackness gave way to reveal a docking bay that wouldn’t have been out of place in any number of ships showcased in the action shows Keda enjoyed so much. Except that this one lacked even a glimmer of the force field that should have been there.

“There’s the entrance we need.” Anakin stopped the spotlight on an inner corner of the landing bay, showing the door. In the lighted circle Keda could see the edge of what had to be a much larger door for managing freight, but the personnel entrance was what they needed to set up a temporary airlock. At least, that was what she assumed they were going to do thanks to the novelmentaries that had fascinated her during the war. She had been happy to learn from those on the ship that had fought in the war (which was most everyone) that other than a subtle anti-Jedi bias, the shows were actually fairly accurate.

The camera view magnified to the point they could have been standing right in front of it, and Anakin stared at the screen for a long moment. “No lights, though there might be a panel concealing them. The away team will be me, Ahsoka, Padme, Asajj, Fun’tac, Craft, and Joker. Groc, take Asajj’s place at the ship’s gun—”

Jenni broke in, “I think Threefer needs to go as well ... Craft, take his ship’s gun.”

Anakin hesitated a moment, then picked up the thread again. “What Jenni said. Full enviro-suits, the battery pack, and the temporary airlock. Let’s go. Master Unduli, do you want to join us?”

Jenni, toggled a switch, and the unfamiliar voice of the Jedi Master Kedra hadn’t met yet came through the cockpit’s speakers. “— _as soon as Jenni makes room in the landing bay. I’ll send you my helmet camera frequency_.”

Jenni replied, “Luminara, it’s probably best if you leave your ship outside and use a jet pack to join the away team. You can leave it outside the airlock.”

“ ... _I can do that_.”

“It’ll take us a few minutes to set up the airlock anyway,” Anakin said, “you’ll have some time. _Tom Joad_ out.”

He unbuckled his harness and Kedra scrunched over slightly in her seat to give him room to pass by. (The two rear seats of the four in the cockpit were kinda afterthoughts crammed in, or at least they felt like it to her.) As the door hissed shut behind him, Jenni twisted to look over at her. “Kedra, for the rest of the mission, do you want to watch from here, or with Barriss in the command center?”

“What’s the difference?”

“Barriss will have projections of all of the away team’s camera feeds. Up here you’ll only have two, but you’ll also be able to see what I’m doing.”

Kedra looked out the cockpit window at the bay for a long moment. “ ... I think I’d rather stay here with you. Can I move up front?”

“Sure.” Jenni laid her hand on a panel, then after a line of light crossed the panel as it scanned her palm she tapped a button, causing it to glow blue. “I’ve just slaved the ship to the copilot’s controls, you won’t have to worry about hitting something by accident.”

Kedra hastily unbuckled and shifted seats. When she looked up as she finished strapping herself into her new seat, she found two square, flat holographs projected about the controls. Jenni smiled knowingly. “Which two cameras do you want displayed?”

Kedra didn’t know why she found her cheeks heating up, it wasn’t like the Bond could talk, but ... “Asajj— I mean, Ventress and Threefer, please.”

“Like I had to ask.” The screens lit up, showing a shifting view of the antechamber to the _Tom Joad_ ’s airlock, and members of the away team checking the seals of each others’ enviro-suits. “A few minutes and they’ll be ready to go.”


	5. All hope abandon, ye who enter here.

Jenni didn’t glance at the young woman in the pilot’s seat next to her. Most of her attention was on turning the _Tom Joad_ around before moving it out of the landing bay toward Master Unduli’s floating ship. Nor did Jenni smile, though if she’d done either Kedra wouldn’t have noticed. The likely soon-to-be-former waitress’s eyes were fixed to the projected camera feeds from Asajj and Threefer as the pair checked the seals of the temporary airlock they were helping set up. The faces of Kedra’s two ‘friends with benefits’ couldn’t be seen, of course, but there was still the connection from seeing what they were seeing. And from the emotional mix wafting to Jenni on the currents shifting and swirling through the cockpit, all fondness and concern and the tinge of lust that was always there whenever Kedra’s thoughts turned to them, that friendship was deep into infatuation.

Good, just maybe this would work out like she hoped.

Then the _Tom Joad_ was in position next to Master Unduli’s ship, turned so it could dash back into the landing bay again. “Barriss, we’re in position, I’m about to take up Overwatch. Are you ready to take over control?”

“ _Everything’s green on my board, I’m clear to take control_.”

“Transferring control ...” Jenni tapped a code into the keyboard to one side, and a green stud on her board lit up. “ ... now.”

“ _I have control_.”

“Transfer acknowledged.”

Jenni settled back in her seat and smiled at her now thoroughly confused passenger. “Overwatch is a Bond thing ... well, really, a Jenni thing, something we’ve worked out in the past few years. You know I have the best sense for any predators lurking in the currents, and we’ve found that I can use the Bond to kind of ... spread out my focus over the full Bond, not just the area of the flow I’m swimming in myself. So Barriss has the secondary ship’s controls in the command center, in case anything jumps at us here. She can transfer control back to me with the tap of a button. Now I’m afraid it’s going to be quiet here, except for the camera feeds.”

“That’s fine, I wouldn’t want to distract you anyway.”

Kedra’s eyes returned to the projections—it looked like the temporary airlock was almost done—and Jenni smiled as the way her companion’s heart leapt as she focused on the two she was coming to love, even if she wasn’t aware of it yet.

Trusting Barriss to keep the _Tom Joad_ and their children safe—Barriss wasn’t at her level, but her ability to sense the shifting currents around them were those of any Dancer that had survived on battlefield after battlefield—Jenni closed her eyes and reached out to those of the Bond clustered around the temporary airlock. She didn’t try to see through their eyes, handling three viewpoints simultaneously was vertigo-inducing and concentrating on one would defeat the purpose. Instead she gathered the three bright dancing flames of Anakin, Ahsoka, and Padme to her as if they were her own, until they seemed to merge with each other and her, and then turned her attention out to the currents flowing around them.

There was Luminara’s and Asajj’s bright flames dancing, of course, and Threefer’s own flickering ember—but an ember that seemed to somehow be dancing in time with Asajj’s, huh ... Jenni had never sensed anything like that. _I wonder if I would have with Anakin and Padme if I’d learned this trick before they’d joined the Bond?_ If so, that would be all to the good.

Beyond the pair Jenni had such hopes for, there were Fun’tac and Joker, with the patient calm of experienced soldiers, waiting for ... whatever, coming at them of them going the other way. The team was ready, so now for what they needed to be ready for....

Centering on her Bond at the airlock, she expanded her sense of the currents, taking in more and more of the base beyond (and empty space toward the _Tom Joad_ , of course, but there was nothing there to sense). If she hadn’t been so deep into her trance that she was barely connected to her body, she would have frowned. Her Bond _did_ pick up her flicker of unease, and the presences in the Bond all tensed.

_‘What’s wrong, what are you sensing?’_ Ahsoka asked.

_‘I ... don’t know. It feels like_ something _is in there, something dangerous. But it’s like a ghost, hazy, barely disturbing the currents at all. I can’t even get a sense of numbers or location. I don’t like this, what were Darth Sidious’s Void Slaves working on here?’_

_‘We can’t be sure it was Sidious.’_

_‘It’s recent, hidden, and interferes with the flow of the Tao.’_

_‘ ... okay, it’s Sidious. Which means that even if what Ahsoka needs wasn’t here we’d still need to deal with it.’_

/\

Threefer (the name his squadbrothers gave him on a swamp world whose name he’d never learned after he managed to take down three Separatists with one shot to a vine holding suspended a rotten tree—he hoped the two other survivors of his squad were doing okay, maybe there’d be letters with the next courier from Naboo) wasn’t surprised by the silence on the coms, that just meant the Bond were talking to each other, any moment Skywalker would report whatever Jenni had found—

“ _Jenni reports something dangerous is in there, but she can’t get a lock on position or numbers. It isn’t like the Veil, probably to help keep the base hidden, but we’re assuming we’ve found the lair of more of Sidious’s darksiders. Given the location it isn’t likely to be a manufactory, but it could be a laboratory_.”

Threefer winced at that. This wasn’t the first of the dead Sith Lord’s hidden bases they’d stumbled across, and he’d take a manufactory over a laboratory any day—manufactories’ products could be deadly, but laboratories were more random.

“ _Is Mas— Is Jenni’s inability to get a clear read unusual?_ ” Threefer didn’t recognize the feminine voice coming through his earpiece, so he assumed that it was the Jedi that was placing the jet pack she’d used to join them next to the temporary airlock.

“ _No, it isn’t, which is why we think it’s one of Sidious’s labs, we don’t know of anyone else that was working on how to mess with Force perception ... and the temporary airlock is green for pressure, Padme, it’s all yours. Once she’s done me and Asajj will take the lead, Ahsoka and Master Unduli will take the rear, everyone else in the center, Padme is the package_.”

“ _The package?_ ” Master Unduli asked.

“ _What everyone else is guarding, we need to get her to a working computer terminal_.”

“ _Understood_.”

Probably not, the Jedi master had never seen Anakin lose it when his wife was injured, like everyone onboard the _Tom Joad_ except Kedra had. (And how a married couple worked within a Bond, where everyone was fucking everyone else, Threefer didn’t know—Asajj had commented once that she didn’t think they knew, either.) Not normally a problem, if things were bad enough Padme was actually injured it almost certainly meant the landscape needed to be torn up, but inside a hollow planetoid with who knew what kind of experimentation with Dark Side alchemy, that was probably not a good idea. Threefer had to wonder what was so important that Anakin was willing to risk Padme this way—the Bond had made clear before leaving that this mission was personal when they’d offered everyone the choice to stay behind on Jussul (not that anyone had taken them up on it), but hadn’t said more than that.

_Wonder about that later, whatever brought us out here we have another villain’s lair to clean out_. And hadn’t Jenni howled with laughter when Ahsoka had compared the last hidden Darksider base they’d stumbled across to some horrible children’s show they’d found during Jenni’s ‘anthropological research’ into modern culture.

While Threefer had been ruminating (the last chance he’d have for it, until the mission was over) Padme had entered the temporary airlock, and now her voice sounded in his ear: “ _The airlock still has power, it was in power-saving and stealth modes. I’ve flipped the switch on both_.” (Threefer’s lips twitched at yet another Terranism, by the time Jenni was done Basic wold be irredeemably corrupted, at least in the Outer Rim. ‘Okay’ had already taken on a life of its own, they were hearing it on planets the Bond had never been to before.) “ _The grav-plates are still functioning in here as in the bay_.” Now Padme backed out of the temporary airlock, and Anakin and Asajj stepped around her to enter side-by-side. It would take a few minutes to evacuate the air in the actual airlock, if there was any (and there probably was, since it was closed), then enter it and wait for it to refill with air—

“ _We have a corpse in the airlock, what’s left of it after two years._ ” Anakin’s voice was level, but more tense than before.

Why became clear when Asajj added, “ _It isn’t in an enviro-suit, so the only reason I can think of for a corpse to be in an airlock they ... yes, it’s unlocked ... that they could open at any time is if they were hiding from something and frightened enough of it that they’d rather die of thirst than face it. Passing the corpse out now, it’s in the temporary airlock, we’re headed in_.” A long moment of silence. “ _Okay, this is just plain freaky. Have you seen anything like this?_ ”

“ _No, I haven’t. And you’ve already been hanging around Jenni too long, and you’ve only been with us a year_.” On the surface Anakin’s response to Asajj’s question was still calm, even lighthearted, but Threefer’s practiced ear could hear the tension underlying the banter ratchet even higher ... Anakin, the so-called Hero With No Fear (a sobriquet that had stuck in spite of the revelation of Sidious’s propaganda machine—the heroism it was based on was real, after all) was spooked. The following pause was proof of that, as well as the grudging edge to his voice when he finally said, “ _Everything looks clear ... strange, but clear. But we’re going to be moving single file instead of by pairs, it’s a good thing we left Artoo with Threepio and Barriss. The air reads clean, but everyone keep their helmets on anyway, there may be something in the air our sensors can’t recognize. We’ll need decontam before we go back on board the_ Tom Joad.”

... Okay.... Threefer quickly moved forward into the temporary airlock, Joker on his heels. The pair passed the corpse—dressed in some kind of uniform he’d never seen before, and probably female from the cut of the clothing—out of the temporary airlock to be shoved out into deep space, cycled through the actual airlock, and Threefer made certain to be the first out when the hatch slid aside so he’d be right behind Asajj (no way would Anakin _not_ be first), then slammed to a stop so abrupt he was almost knocked off his feet when Joker ran into him.

/\

Kedra didn’t hear the whine in the back of her throat as she stared at the images in the projections of Asajj’s and now Threefer’s helmet cameras. She didn’t notice the bone-white death-grip she had on the edge of her seat, either, as she watched the four make room in the corridor they found themselves in for the rest of the team to enter.

Once that was done, Threefer poked at the slick-looking, resinous, grayish-greenish substance coating the walls and ceiling—visible in the glowing light panels in the ceiling only faintly obscured—with a probe he must have had in one of the pockets on his belt. He held up the probe so he, and the camera, could look closely at its tip and the water bead oozing down its length toward his gloved fingers. “ _Whatever that stuff is, it isn’t acidic, no etching or pitting. Beyond that, anyone have any idea what it is?_ ”

“ _It looks resinous_ ,” Ahsoka commented.

“Or a secretion of some kind.” Jenni’s voice after the silence had Kedra jerking around in her seat. “But I’m still not picking up more than hints or traces of whatever might have secreted it. It’s hiding from me, somehow.”

“ ... _Well,_ that’s _not good to hear_ ,” one of the troopers Kedra didn’t know said. “ _Just like old times with the generals and commanders. We’ll keep a sharp eye out_.”

“I’ll go back on watch in a few minutes and do what I can, but yeah, don’t be thinking you can count on me this time.” Jenni tapped a stud on her console, its glow blinking out, and turned to Kedra. “I’m _really_ sorry, I didn’t think your introduction to our life would be this bad.”

“It’s—” Kedra croaked, then began to cough. She hadn’t noticed how dry her mouth had gotten. After guzzling half the nutrient-enriched water in the large safety mug Jenni hastily handed her, she tried again. “It’s not normally this bad?”

“No, our adventures are usually Action-Adventure, not Horror, this must be the Halloween episode.” Jenni had told her about Halloween when explaining the decorations Kedra had seen in the Twins’ nursery once, and now she grinned at Kedra’s choked laughter for a moment before sobering. “I won’t lie, though, the currents _do_ sweep us into the occasional mission that belongs in _The Gathering Dark_ , and it looks like this is one of them. Just remember that four of the galaxy’s finest warriors are in that base right now, and Asajj is one of them.”

Kedra nodded as she relaxed. “I know, it’s just ...”

“Hard to remember when you’re watching people you love walk into danger?”

“I ... I ...” She could feel her cheeks heating.

Jenni giggled. “No hiding that from the empath, and nothing to be ashamed of—and it keeps life from getting boring. Are you going to be all right?”

Taking a deep breath, Kedra said, “I think so. I have to get used to this, after all.”

“Good for you.” Jenni tapped the stud that she’d tapped before, and when it again lit up she lay back in her seat and closed her eyes, and Kedra turned her gaze back to the two projections now showing Anakin and Asajj’s backs when the views weren’t sweeping across the ceiling and walls as they passed, the cameras must be slaved somehow to the heads inside the helmets.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I'm reading works translated from another language, when I can I like to pick one piece to compare translations to figure out which I prefer. For the Bible it's Psalm 23, and for Dante's _Divine Comedy_ , it's what I got the chapter title from—the inscription over the entrance to Hell:
> 
> “Through me you pass into the city of woe:  
> Through me you pass into eternal pain:  
> Through me among the people lost for aye.  
> Justice the founder of my fabric mov’d:  
> To rear me was the task of power divine,  
> Supremest wisdom, and primeval love.  
> Before me things create were none, save things  
> Eternal, and eternal I endure.  
> All hope abandon ye who enter here.”
> 
> (Interestingly enough, I ended up rejecting a couple modern translations as well as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's for one by no one I'd never heard of, Henry Francis Cary, published in the last year of the Napoleonic Wars and the War of 1812.


	6. The Lion Sleeps Tonight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, almost a month. I intended to finish off and post this chapter a couple weekends ago, and then Justice Ginsburg died and that plan went out the window. Then I planned to post it last weekend, and Trump nominated Barrett to replace her and that took care of that—exciting times. The good news is that just because I was delayed didn't mean I stopped writing, so I'm a thousand words into the next chapter of _Phoenix Rising_.
> 
> And yes, the chapter title comes from the song, and yes, it is _very_ ironic....

Jenni quietly sighed with relief as Keda turned back to the projections from her two lovers’ camera feeds—the adventurer-to-be’s fear, strong enough to yank Jenni out of her gestalt with most of her Bond, had faded enough that she could ignore it now. So, back to work.

Closing her eyes, she again let herself go limp in her seat and reached out for the flames dancing in the currents that she had come to know as well as her own. Before achieving the unity that came with Overwatch, she took a moment to look out through Anakin’s eyes at the strange, viscous-looking substance that coated the surfaces of the corridor the team was moving through. It looked like some sort of sap that had been coated over the floor and ceiling and oozed down the walls, but it was hard enough that there wasn’t any give under Anakin’s feet. And the way that the ‘sap’ coating the ceiling only lightly coated the light panels, dimming the light but not blocking it entirely, suggested that there was at least an animal-level intelligence behind it, though ‘why’ was still a mystery.

Perhaps the high level of humidity displayed on Anakin’s Heads-Up Display—much too high for a space station—had something to do with it.

_Enough lollygagging, Jenni, you have work to do_. For just a moment the voice in her head sounded like her 90,000-year-dead bondmate Sacajawea, and Jenni ignored the moisture gathering in the corners of her eyes as she again became one with the flames of her bondmates on the away team. That had been happening more and more lately, and as much as she loved all her current bondmates and enjoyed her life in this new universe she had found herself in, there were still times she desperately missed her mother and the bond she had grown up in, the bondmates that had replaced them when she reached sixteen, and the world that had died with them all.

_At least I’ve managed to bring a little of what was lost back to life, now back to work!_

She again reached out for those dancing flames, and expanded her awareness of the shifting currents around them, the flames and sparks of the rest of the away team ... and the hints of danger—no, not even so much as hints, more like a murkiness, a sensation that _something_ was disturbing the flow—that were all around in what had to be other corridors or more rooms, but a mass of them in the center of the planetoid ... probably the command center, and so probably where they needed to get Padme to. Damn. _I wonder what the_ Tao _wants out of our visit?_

But at least whatever was causing faint eddies in the Tao’s currents weren’t moving. Jenni marked the closest locations and settled down to wait as her family and their allies and retainers moved deeper into the base, toward the largest eddy—almost a whirlpool—in the base.

/\

Asajj’s gaze continuously swept over the walls, ceiling, and floor as the away team moved deeper into the base. Not ahead or behind her of course, Anakin had the first covered and while Padme wasn’t up to battlefield standards, Threefer, Fun’tac, Joker, and especially Ahsoka and Master Unduli at the rear _were_.

She would still be happier when they reached some place that didn’t require them to move in single file, though, that formation and the cramped quarters that mandated it—perfect for an ambush—along with whatever was interfering with Jenni’s usual almost supernatural danger sense had Asajj’s nerves singing-tight.

That wasn’t helped by what they’d seen as they’d moved. Yes, whatever was coating all the corridor’s surfaces was forcing them to move in single file, but that was because they couldn’t move two abreast and still have room to fight. And whatever it was, it was translucent, and in a few spots where the light from the ceiling panels wasn’t dimmed by the ‘resin’ coating everything they’d been able to see through it, to the walls underneath ... and the scars from blasters and lightsabers that spotted them, along with dark splotches she couldn’t figure out.

A shout in her earbud along with the sound through her external mic of something cracking had Asajj spinning around, just in time to see Threefer catch Joker before he could fall on his face,—the cracking sound had been his foot breaking through the resin that had covered a hole in the floor.

Supported by his fellow trooper, Joker slowly pulled his leg up out of the hole, careful to avoid the broken edges of the ‘resin’. They were unlikely to be sharp enough to slice through the tough fabric of his enviro-suit, but why take chances?

Padme knelt to check him over—since she was the ‘package’, she was also the one carrying extra medkits just in case. Now she gently ran her gloved hands over the leg that had gone through the ‘resin’ and her voice came through Asajj’s earbud. “ _Everything looks good, no tears or punctures I can see. How about bruising, can you stand on it?_ ”

Joker cautiously put his weight on his leg, took a step, balanced on his other foot as he lifted the leg and shifted it into various positions. “ _A little bruising, but not enough to matter. I’m still combat capable_.”

“ _Good, because we aren’t sending you back to the landing bay alone_.” Padme stared down at the hole in the floor. “ _So what is a hole doing here, anyway? Strange place for it._ ” Her ‘saber flew from her belt to her hand, and when she activated it the glowing white blade was only a few inches long and so dim Asajj knew she was only feeding a trickle of the Force into it. Soon there were wisps of smoke drifting around everyone from the burning resin she was cutting away from around the hole. (One of the things about the Bond that Asajj envied were their variable—both in length and lethality—self-powered lightsabers ... and especially, the bond-crystals the Bond used to power them. It was a pity they were limited to one bond-crystal per person, they were _so_ useful!)

Asajj glanced over at Anakin, and as expected found him staring down the corridor instead of looking over at his wife—good, _this_ time he was staying focused on any possible outside threats and trusting the rest of them to protect his wife from any threats that might pop up inside their perimeter.

“ _Okay, this is odd_.” Asajj turned back at Padme’s words coming over her earbud. “ _It looks like something_ melted _right through the flooring and the rock beneath it ... yep, it goes all the way through_.” She shut down her ‘saber and activated her helmet light before leaning down over the hole. “ _I_ think _it might have done the same to the floor of the room below. The same resin is covering that floor, but I can see a discolored patch_.”

A discolored patch.... Asajj activated her own lightsaber and stepped over to the wall. Hers didn’t have the fine control over the output that the Bond’s ‘sabers did, but she _carefully_ sliced a trench in the resin on three sides of one of the discolored patches there, shut down her ‘saber, dug her fingers underneath the resin, and _pulled_. It reluctantly peeled away to reveal a hole slashing across the wall and baring the stone behind, edges looking melted, tiny holes all around it. “Padme, Threefer, check this out. Have you ever seen anything like this?”

Padme had already risen to her feet, now she stepped over to join the other two examining the exposed patch. “ _No, I never have. Barriss, have you seen anything like this?_ ”

“ _I’m beginning to get some interference—not enough that I can’t direct combat, but fine details aren’t coming through very well. But no, I haven’t seen anything like that._ ”

“ _I have_ ,” Threefer said grimly. “ _Command— I mean, Ahsoka, check this out. Do you remember Ontillooi?_ ” This mission must be getting to him, Asajj reflected, she’d never heard him refer to his former commander by her wartime rank before.

“ _In my nightmares_. _And yeah, that looks just what those monster spitting slugs did to our equipment and armor_ ,” Ahsoka replied without moving from her position in the rear, she must have taken a hopefully brief look through Padme’s eyes (she was part of the rear guard, after all). “ _More powerful, though, that spit wouldn’t have eaten through the steel, the floor, and into the floor below like that_.”

“But this wasn’t spit, it was _splash_ ,” Asajj added, “look at the pattern.”

Master Unduli stepped over from her position at the rear to take a look. “You’re right. If it wasn’t acid, I’d say that was blood spray.”

That pronouncement brought a tense silence as everyone considered its ramifications, until Anakin said, “ _Whatever that means, we won’t learn more standing around. Let’s get moving_.”

As Master Unduli stepped back to her position in the rear guard, Asajj faced about to take up her own position behind Anakin and the away team resumed its progress. She _really_ hoped whatever was interfering with Jenni’s sense of the “flow of the Tao” (and therefore everyone else’s) wasn’t interfering with the Bond’s sense of where they needed to get to, to get whatever data they were looking for.

Their path meandered, through corridor after corridor and a few stairs and even down a turbolift shaft. If Asajj hadn’t gotten completely turned around, she _thought_ they were getting close to the center of the planetoid, miles deep. It turned out the resin coating was patchy, which had her wondering about why it was in some places and not in others. The battle scars were patchy as well, including another few spots where more acid had gotten splashed around, including a couple that had come through the ceiling—one spot actually had a strip burned through the wall from floor to ceiling, creating another entry into what had looked in passing like some kind of laboratory. But the humidity was constant, even rising. And throughout the journey, Jenni was silent.

Just when she was about to raise the question of whether they were lost, Anakin stopped. “ _We’ve reached the control center. At least, I_ think _it’s the control center_.” He stepped forward again, hunched over, and Asajj saw why he thought it was the control center, the entrance had been closed by blast doors that wouldn’t have been out of place on a capital ship. And those doors _had_ been closed, with a massive hole in them clearly carved open by ‘sabers. She activated her ‘saber and pressed the tip against the steel to one side of the carved opening, and frowned at the rising whine that produced—it must have taken the full charge of at least three lightsabers to carve open the door like that, possibly four or five.

Then she followed Anakin and realized why he’d been less than certain that they’d finally reached their destination.

/\

Luminara looked around the large circle of the control center, eyes wide and nerves singing with tension. At least, she _thought_ it was the control center. The layout was right—raised dais in the middle of the room, surrounded by screens and work stations, it wouldn’t have looked out of place on a fleet flagship—but where in the corridors the resin had merely been a mostly-thin coating, here it covered the floor, walls, and ceiling in flowing heaps and swirls, like frozen waves washed across the floor and up over consoles and walls to cross the ceiling high above, casting strangely shaped shadows in the dim glow of the few light panels not obscured to worthlessness. There was a pattern, she was sure of it, a logic that teased at her mind, just out of reach, but it was _wrong_ , somehow.

But there wasn’t anything alien about the logic of the new purpose of the room, the single glance at the corpses imbedded in the resin covering the walls and the empty egg-shaped objects in the film of water covering the floor, their tops opened like blooming flowers, was enough for that. The scattering about the room of other ‘eggs’ whose tops _weren’t_ open wasn’t reassuring.

All of which led to a simple question as she heard the _drip-drip_ of droplets falling from the ceiling and saw the water beads oozing down the resin covering walls and monitors. “Do you really think we’re going to be able to get anything out of the computers? After years in conditions like _this_?”

“ _Yes_ ,” replied Padme as she stepped through carved opening in the blast doors. “ _It’s only connections to keyboards, monitors, and holoprojectors that’ll be corroded, the memory core itself will be fine. So long as enough of a connection is left to allow me to access the core, I can feed any information I can find to the_ Tom Joad _, or if our communications isn’t clear enough the memory storage I brought with me_.” She patted a thick, square box belted to her hip. “ _And one of these consoles_ will _have that connection still, or the currents wouldn’t have swept us here_.”

All of which made sense, except for one thing. “I don’t see anyone with a backpack full of all the instruments needed to check connections, access the core, and download whatever you’re looking for.”

“ _I don’t need them, I have the Tao_.” Padme glanced around at the corpses and then the ‘eggs’, both opened and unopened. “ _Good thing, I’m much faster, too_.” She walked wide of the ‘eggs’, carefully stepping between them when she couldn’t. Anakin and Ahsoka silently took up position between her and the rest of the room as she drew her lightsaber, again activated it at the knife-sized power level, and began cutting away the resin coating the closest console.

Asajj stepped over next to Luminara. “ _Anakin and Ahsoka have Padme covered, the rest of us are covering the room. You’re over there_.” She pointed to a spot against the far side of the circular room between Threefer and Joker, before making her way around and through the ‘eggs’ to take a position against the wall between Threefer and Fun’tac. With Anakin flanking Joker and Ahsoka flanking Fun’tac, they had the entire room surrounded.

Jedi didn’t pray—they were, after all, servants of the Force to act as they were guided, and the Force had guided her here—but Luminara was _really_ hoping that there were no openings in the walls concealed by the ‘resin’ and the dimness of the coated light panels.

“ _No, this one’s no good_ ,” Padme muttered before abandoning the console she was working on and shifting over to the next, the entire circle shifting with her. Then again when she abandoned the next ... and the next.... “ _Finally!_ ” she exclaimed, her arms elbow deep in the sparking ruin of the fourth console—she’d actually used her lightsaber to slice the top of the console away. “ _Artoo, Threepio, are you two ready? Is the reception good enough?_ ”

“ _We are prepared, Mistress Padme_ ,” came the prim-and-proper voice of the protocol droid Luminara remembered from the few times she had encountered then-Senator Amidala on Coruscant. It was obviously more than just a protocol droid now. “ _The connection is currently sufficiently strong for data transmission. Do be careful_.” C-3PO’s statement was accompanied by the beeps and whistles that Luminara assumed came from Anakin’s R2 unit.

“ _We’ll make it as fast as we can and be headed back_ ,” Padme replied. “ _This is_ not _a cheerful vacation spot_.”

_Now_ there’s _an understatement_ , Luminara thought to herself. She found it difficult to keep her attention on her sector of the room as she waited—Padme simply stood leaning over with her arms buried in the console she’d gutted, eyes closed, but several lights on a square box at her hip started to flicker ... she must be uploading data into the portable unit as well as transmitting it, somehow. Luminara had no idea how she was doing either, and _definitely_ intended to ask.

But that was for after the mission was over, and Luminara managed to tear her attention away from the former Senator and back to her own task as she berated herself for her lack of professionalism. She had been able to fight her way across battlefields while maintaining her calm serenity, at peace with herself if not the universe trying to kill her and her men, but something about this place was tightening her nerves until they sang with tension. While she was too busy sweeping her eyes about the room for danger to focus on the clones and the other Force-users in the room, from their own stiff postures and constantly turning heads she suspected they felt the same.

Then a hint a shifting shadow caught her attention, and her gaze whipped over to one of the ‘eggs’ not ten feet away—whose top was beginning to slowly split open like a flower in bloom. “Luminara speaking, movement on my 310 close.”

“ _Great_.” “ _I see it_.” “ _Acknowledged_.” “ _Padme, we need to go,_ now.”

The last was Anakin, with an edge to his voice that should have been anathema to anyone Temple-raised. Though he really hadn’t been, had he?

“ _I’m almost done ... there! I didn’t understand much of the data, but from what I did I_ think _I got what we needed, Queen Apailana’s scientists will be able to tell us more. And you’re right, we need to get out of here. The vid recordings of the main project here are terri_ —” Out of the corner of her eye, Luminara had watched Padme straighten and pull her arms out of the still-sparking console even as she was speakign, and now she turned around and froze. “ _Oh, no_.”

Climbing out of the now-open egg was what looked like nothing so much as a fleshy _hand_ , with claw-tipped bony fingers on each side and a whippy tail extending from its base. Luminara couldn’t see anything resembling an eye or openings for other sensory organs, but it was obviously sensing somehow as it oriented toward her, the tail curling up underneath. It obviously wasn’t mechanical, but even with her mind and will focused on the thing only feet away from her, she was sensing only the faintest echo of it in the Force.

Still, she had spent years fighting droid armies, so when the tail coiled underneath catapulted it toward her like a spring, she was prepared. Her lightsaber sprang to life, the jade-green blade sweeping up to intercept it—

Threefer’s blaster bolt hammered it sideways across the room where it splatted against the wall and dropped to the floor—which was scarily impressive, the bolt should have at least cauterized the hole it punched through that thing, or even blown it apart. The resin covering floor and wall began to bubble under the body fluids splashed across it.

“ _Movement! There’s movement!_ ” Jenni’s shout through her earbud had Luminara’s ear ringing.

“ _Where?_ ” Ahsoka demanded, her two shorter lightsabers springing to life as she looked around. (One lime-green, the other pure white like the rest of the Bond’s weapons, Luminara noted distantly as she looked around herself.)

“ _All around you!_ ”

“Around us? But—” Luminara broke off her retort, and as one the entire away team looked up as the walls above them came alive.


	7. The Party Never Ends

Jenni ignored Keda’s scream, just as she ignored the flashes of metallic-shiny-long-sharp-claws-whippet-tails-too-many-teeth in the holographic feeds from Threefer’s and Asajj’s helmet cameras. Ignoring Keda’s fear beating against her was more difficult, but fortunately she didn’t need the deep immersion of Overwatch, much less total immersion when she merged with the currents of the Tao. Instead, as her fingers flew over the pilot seat’s side keyboard to bring up a wire frame shape of the asteroid outpost’s rough outline, she focused on her last memory on Overwatch, and the hints of movement that had started up throughout the base. There had been _much_ more than just in the central room with the away team. _There must be some sort of hive mind going on, the alert went out to_ all _of them_. The outpost frame completed, her fingers flashed through it, pausing for a split-second at each spot where she’d sensed movement to let the computer know to leave a point of light there.

Then she was done, and she paled at the miniature star field she’d created ... and how many of those stars were along or close to the route the away team had taken to the control room. They couldn’t come back that way. _So how do they get out?_ It looked like she was going to have to go for a deep dive, after all.

At least Keda wasn’t screaming anymore. Jenni waved to get their guest’s attention. When the pasty-white-faced Human looked over at her, she said, “I’m going back on Overwatch for a bit, the monsters they’re fighting aren’t all in the control room and I need to track the rest. Please keep quiet and at least try to control your fear.”

Keda jerked a nod, and Jenni leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes, trying to sink into the Tao. Keda’s fear still beat against her but slowly became meaningless white noise, and Jenni again found herself swept along by the Tao’s current—only where before it had been calm, even placid, now she was being swept through rapids, almost dizzying as she whirled through eddies and around whirlpools caused by the presences she’d barely been able to sense at all before. She still had trouble sensing them, they were almost like _holes_ in the current—but unlike droids they were holes that the current swept _around_ instead of _through_ and so were easier to track even if they had no flames of their own. She reached out for those flames that were her other selves burning bright in the current as they fought for their lives, centered herself in and around them, reached out, expanding her sense of the currents around them for those _holes_ ... and hastily pulled herself free of the union to breach the current back into the waking world. If her hands weren’t gripping the edges of her seat they’d be shaking, and she suspected she was as bleached white as Keda. _Remember, the party never ends_. She tapped her com over to all-channels.

/\

Luminara stood with her legs slightly spread, the lightsaber gripped by both hands a vertical humming bar in front of her. She was part of the circle the away team had formed around the ‘captain’s chair’ and its corpse on the dais in the middle of the room. It had been purely instinctive, that circle, created when everyone had bolted away from the walls as soon as the shadows above them came alive. Now they all stood waiting with lightsabers and blasters at the ready for a renewed attack from perhaps a double handful of horrors like she had never seen before—shaped like bio-mechanical travesties of the corpses of starvation victims, though they had strange, tube-like protuberances on their backs and their shiny-smooth, curved heads were like no sentient she had ever seen. But the saliva dripping from their jaws and the animal grace with which they prowled in eerie silence about the circle, spine-ridged, stinger-tipped tails whipping about, said they were very much alive and not the mechanical constructs she’d initially taken them to be. Machines didn’t typically have acid for a circulating fluid, either, and the corpses of the monstrosities that had been unfortunate enough to be within lightsaber-reach of the circle when the team turned to face them slowly subsided sizzling into the floor.

“ _What are they waiting for?_ ” Padme asked from her place on the opposite side of the circle. And if her voice shook a little, Luminara couldn’t blame her—she’d been in many more battles than the former Senator, and she was feeling a little weak-kneed herself.

As it turned out, even if the question was rhetorical Jenni had an answer. “ _They’re waiting for reinforcements. I don’t think they’re a hive mind, but there is definitely some kind of mental link—when I said there was movement all around you, I didn’t just mean in the room with you, I meant_ all around you _. It’s like the entire outpost came alive, and they’re all moving in your direction_.”

“So we have to move,” Luminara said. “We’re in a cul-de-sac here, wait and we’ll be trapped by an ever-growing mob we’ll have to cut through.”

“ _You can’t come back the way you came_ ,” Jenni warned, “ _for some reason these things are especially thick on the side of the base with the hanger bay_.”

Luminara heard a choking sound through her ear bud, then Padme responded—and now her voice wasn’t just shaking a little, she was stuttering to the point the Jedi Master couldn’t understand her.

“ _Deep breaths, Pad. Remember, the party never ends_.”

Padme actually laughed at Jenni’s nonsensical quip, or maybe the nickname, but she calmed enough that she could be understood. “ _Most of these things are on that side of the base because that would have been where they caught the victims they gestated eggs in. None of us want to be captured by these abominations, a clean death is better_.”

Blaster fire shattered the eerie silence. “ _And here comes the first to join the party. If we can’t fight our way back to the hanger bay, how do we get out?_ ” Luminara didn’t recognize the voice, but she _thought_ the response was from Threefer. She couldn’t be sure, with the additional blaster fire echoing in her ears. “ _Maybe there’s a hidden entrance somewhere in the floor?_ ”

“ _If there is, we don’t have time to find it. I have an idea. We need to get over to the entrance, then I’ll need you to cover me_.”

Luminara didn’t like the dark undercurrent to Anakin’s voice, and she wasn’t heartened by the unhappily resigned sound of Ahsoka’s voice: “ _Oh, wonderful,_ Sky Guy’s _got an idea_.” The tension had been growing to the point that Luminara could feel it in spite of her laser-focus on the abominations prowling around them, and the way it spiked was _not_ promising.

“ _Do you, Snips?_ ”

“ _No, I don’t. Lead on, big guy_.”

“ _Hey, no talking about your love life, we don’t want to hear it!_ ”

The laughter at Asajj’s snark broke the tension.

“ _Right, we’ll save it for the hold_ ,” Padme said, her voice much steadier. “ _Let’s go_.”

The circle began to shift toward the sliced-open hole in the blast doors, and Luminara sensed a faint twitch in the Force warning of danger as all the creatures prowling around the circle instantly sprang toward them. She ignored the blaster fire and increasing pitch of active lightsabers in motion as she focused on the two coming at her, freezing one in mid-air a handspan away from her face as her lightsaber swept up to take the head off the other. She kicked the corpse away, stepping to one side to avoid the spatter of acid blood, and another faint twitch in the Force had her dodging the _second_ set of teeth that shot out of the gaping jaws of the one she held suspended. Those tiny jaws snapped only centimeters from her face as she pushed it away only to lose her hold when a scream of pain through her earbud tried to slam her head to one side. It dropped to the floor and sprang toward her, only for her to freeze it in place again as her lightsaber’s tip thrust between its jaws and out the back of it head. She threw the corpse across the room and looked around, then relaxed when she couldn’t see any living abominations. “Who screamed?”

“ _Master Unduli, Ahsoka, Fun’tac, Joker, guard the doorway. Padme, how’s Threefer?_ ”

“ _I’ve gotten the acid neutralized but his mask’s ceramaplast is gone,_ maybe _the bacta tank will be able to save the arm. Threefer, I’m going to give you some painkillers. You’ll be able to walk, but you’ll be too woozy to aim straight. I’m afraid you just became the package. So Ani, how do we get out of here if we can’t go back the way we came?_ ”

“ _We make a new exit. Jenni, from the way these things are moving, are there any corridors or rooms directly below us?_ ”

There was a pause as Padme helped a wavering Threefer over to a seat in front of on of the stations, then joined Asajj, Ahsoka, Luminara, and the two clones at the doorway. Without so much as a word, the six had fallen into the natural tactical positions, at least for an enemy that couldn’t shoot back—the two clones in front of the entrance where they could fire through the hole carved in the blast doors at anything that came down the hallway but several meters back, Luminara and Ahsoka on either side where they could deal with anything that made it through the blaster fire into the control center, Asajj and Padme flanking the clones—out of their line of fire, but close enough that they could deal with anything that got past the other two Force-users. While the angle kept Luminara from seeing anything, the two clones immediately started intermittent firing through the carved-out hole in the bast door, their blaster fire answered by the shrieks of monsters that were no longer silent.

Then Jenni was back. “ _Anakin, you’re absolutely insane. But yes, there’s a corridor not far below the wall eleven o’clock with the entrance at six, running through to three. Get it done, we’ll be waiting to pull you free from the Void_.”

“ _I know you will_.” Anakin strode to a point at the far side of the dais and looked around. “ _About here?_ ”

“ _You’re dead center_.”

“ _Good_.” Anakin knelt and slowly thrust his lightsaber into the floor almost to the hilt. He peered into the hole. “ _What I was afraid of, the saber doesn’t go all the way through_.” He punched a series of holes around the first one, then rose and turned to face the doorway. “ _Now comes the tricky part. You need to let one—and_ only _one—of those things through_.”

Luminara’s ears were almost ruptured by the group shout of “ _What!!!_ ” Including her own.

/\

Jenni actually laughed as she pulled away from the others in the Bond—she hadn’t needed the rush of sheer disbelief from Barriss in the _Tom Joad_ ’s command center and Ahsoka in the base to know how they’d react. Not Padme, though, she actually had a thread of humor under the worried acceptance ... two years, and she still knew their husband better than the other Bondmates (including Jenni, she’d cheated by dipping into Anakin’s thoughts for a moment).

Jenni ignored what was happening in the outpost for a moment, both sensed through the Bond and displayed in the projections from Threefer’s and Asajj’s helmet cameras that Keda was watching in terrified silence—no, only Asajj’s camera was working, Threefer’s camera must have been caught in the same splash of acid blood that had destroyed his helmet’s ceramaplast visor.

Speaking of Keda, their trainee’s overpowering, gut-clenching fear was back, hammering at Jenni’s mind, but it wasn’t threatening to overwhelm her this time the way it had before. Either Jenni was learning to filter out that fear (along with Barriss’s), or the need to ignore her own fear twisting in her gut and choking her breath was having a carry-over effect. Normally for a mission like this both she and Barriss would have been with the rest of the team, with some of the clones that had joined them manning combat center and pilot’s seat alike, but this time pregnancy and exigency alike had separated the Bond, and she would have been too busy or focused—or both—for her own fear to have much effect. Now she set aside that fear, both hers and Keda’s, and submerged herself in the Tao sweeping around them, feeling out the current she needed to follow as she used the _Tom Joad_ ’s maneuvering thrusters to slowly push the ship into motion.

As the view through the cockpit’s transparisteel began to shift Keda yanked her eyes away from the holo-projection of Asajj’s camera feed to Jenni and shouted, “What are you doing?!”

“They can’t come back out the way they came in, so they’ll have to make their own exit. And when they do, we’ll be there to pick them up.”

‘When’, not ‘if’. Keda stared at her for a moment, then nodded sharply and turned back to Asajj’s camera feed. Her fear was still strong, but no longer overpowering. She hadn’t noticed that Jenni hadn’t said that they’d _all_ make it back, or how hunting predators focused on the weak and wounded.

/\

Luminara’s ears were still ringing when Padme said, “ _He’s going to use the acid blood to eat through the stone underneath the flooring, do as he says_.”

Luminara glanced over at Ahsoka on the other side of the door, and the Togrutan rolled her eyes but nodded. _Okay, no one told me that joining a Bond made you crazy_. But Luminara’s lips stretched into a tight smile, and she stepped back out of immediate reach of whatever might come through the opening. Looked at objectively it wasn’t _that_ crazy of an idea—yes, lightsabers could carve through that stone more efficiently than acid blood however potent, but it also drained their power—and since the floor was deeper than the blades of their lightsabers were long they wouldn’t be able to just cut out a circle, they’d have to carve out wedges and lift them out, all while holding off those monstrosities. And they didn’t know how thick that stone was.

The clones didn’t seem any more enthused by the idea than Luminara was, but they stopped firing nonetheless, and showed how much they trusted the Bond—when the first black monster sprang through the hole, landed on the other side, and sprang toward them they didn’t even flinch. Padme stepped forward, her own white blade held humming in front of her, but the monster froze in mid-air.

Luminara didn’t see any more, she and Ahsoka had their own job to do. Refocusing on the hole in the blast doors, she stepped forward and her and Ahsoka’s lightsabers chopped the next creature coming through into multiple pieces. As she stepped back to avoid some acid splash (she couldn’t believe that their lightsabers weren’t completely cauterizing the wounds inflicted on creatures that, as horrific as they were, were only man-sized), the clones resumed their blaster-fire through the hole to a fresh chorus of ear-piercing shrieks.

And the chamber abruptly filled with the presence of the Dark Side, thick enough to choke on. Luminara’s head whipped around, to find only Anakin standing beside the pattern of holes he’d punched in the floor, arm outstretched as he held the creature he’d captured suspended beside him—but an Anakin whose eyes had changed to the yellow-rimmed black the Jedi master had seen all too often over the course of the war, in hate-filled faces of enemies trying to kill her and hers. Even as she watched, Anakin’s fist slowly clenched, and the screaming creature just as slowly crumpled like a crushed fruit, its blood splashing down like fresh juice to run into the holes in the floor. A minute later the spurting flow was reduced to dripping, and Anakin cast the crushed husk aside.

“ _Master Unduli, eyes front!_ ”

Luminara spun back around at Ahsoka’s shout, and her lightsaber bisected another of the creatures that followed directly behind the one that Ahsoka was carving to pieces. The two corpses landed on another corpse lying in its own bubbling blood and smoking from multiple blaster bolts. More blaster bolts flashed past them through the holed blast doors.

“ _Next!_ ”

Luminara stiffened at Anakin’s call and glanced over at Ahsoka, who sighed and nodded. “ _We’ll explain later, let’s get through this alive first_.” After a moment’s consideration Luminara nodded and stepped to the side, bringing up her lightsaber as the clones stopped their suppressive barrage, ready to step back in and stop the follow-ons after the next ... and the next ... and the next....

She lost track of how many she’d let through, how many of the creatures she’d killed, how many times she’d heard the dying shrieks and crunch of the creatures that Anakin was squeezing like fruit. Like the battles of the war, her world narrowed to repetitive action combined with an expanded awareness of any possible threats around her as she fought for their lives. Even the cloying, suffocating feel of the Dark Side surrounding her, pressing in, was familiar—in a tiny corner of her mind not occupied with survival, she thought to herself that she was going to be spending more of her time meditating than sleeping for the next week, as old memories haunted her dreams.

Then rather than the call to allow another monstrosity, the sound of tearing metal had her turning to look at Anakin again—if somewhat more cautiously this time, with an eye on the blast doors—to see an entire section of the stations along the wall peel away to float over to just above a spot on the floor obscured by drifting tendrils of smoke from acid-vaporized steel and rock, next to where Anakin stood with one thrust straight up.

“ _Ani, wait!_ ”

He turned to look at Padme still standing by the clones, and she pointed toward the hole in the blast doors. “ _That first_.” He nodded without speaking, simply waving Luminara and Ahsoka away from the door, and as soon as they hastily backed away swung his arm down. The crunch of the collapsing stations and the shriek of steel scraping against steel echoed through the chamber as what had to be over a ton of metal compacted itself into the hole carved in the blast doors.

Everyone in the room relaxed, the Force-users shutting down their lightsabers. Padme hurried over to check on Threefer again, and Asajj stepped over to the other clones. “ _That was a lot of rapid fire you were throwing down range. How’s your blasters?_ ”

“ _They should be all right_ ,” one of the clones—Fun’tac?—said as the pair swapped out the battery cells for fresh ones. “ _We’ll want to do some maintenance when we’re back on the_ Tom Joad _, make sure the overheating didn’t do too much damage, but we’ve done rapid fire longer during the war without too much problem_.”

But that was peripheral, barely noticed by Luminara as she stared at an Anakin standing stiff and straight, face stony, his yellow-ringed black eyes staring at the wall almost seeming to glow. Before she could think of anything to say, Ahsoka stepped over and embraced him. Her face pressed against her shoulder, she murmured, “ _Come on, big guy, time to come home_.”

For a moment Anakin didn’t move, but then his arms rose to circle his bondmate’s shoulders and his head dipped to rub his cheek against her montral, his eyes closed. When they opened a moment later they were back to their usual blue. He tightened his hug. “ _Thanks, Snips_.”

“ _Anytime, Sky Guy_.”

Again, Luminara struggled to come up with something—anything—to say, but before she had the chance her earbud crackled to life again with Jenni’s distorted voice, overriding what Luminara suddenly realized was the soft sound of Threefer giggling ... he really _had_ gotten the ‘good stuff’. “ _Welcome back, Big Guy, I’m bringing the_ Tom Joad _around to your exit point now_.” Apparently, ‘Big Guy’ required capitalization now, at least for Anakin.

“ _Where is that?_ ” Padme asked as she helped Threefer to his feet. She hadn’t just been checking up on him, she’d also pulled up his emergency helmet.

“ _I’m riding the currents, wherever the_ Tom Joad _ends up will be where your exit is located_.”

“ _And we’re as ready as we’re going to be_ ,” Asajj said. “ _Skywalker, stop hugging your squeeze, time to make that hole_.”

“ _Right_.” Anakin stepped away from his former Padawan and reached out toward another bank of consoles.

/\

The ambush hit them about the two-thirds of the way to where the _Tom Joad_ waited for them.

Jenni had reported that, as best she could tell in the faint shifts in the currents, the creatures seeking their worse-than-deaths were gathering outside the entrance to the control room now sealed by crushed consoles. She’d also reported that she hadn’t been able to see any hint of coordination among that gathered mob—they didn’t attack each other, but they didn’t work together either. And as the away team had fled for whatever exit the Mother had directed Jenni to, the corridors they were going down as rapidly as stealth allowed had more and more often become simple corridors rather than tunnels of hardened secretions, the light level improving with more and more of the overhead panels uncovered. Finally, those secretions had become only the occasional patches around doorways opening onto the corridor. And so the away team—clones and Force-users alike—had relaxed, only tensing up when fresh patches of the alien amber came into view.

The darkened doorway from which the skeletal spear-tipped tail whipped out to thrust through Fun’tac’s chest and out his back in a spray of blood didn’t have a hint of amber.

The bubbly shriek of Fun’tac’s last breath ringing in her ears, Asajj leaped back from her position at the front of the line beside Anakin, her lightsaber blade still springing to life slicing through the bone-like eco-skeleton of the tail yanking out of the collapsing corpse. Her follow-on strike took an arm off the thing even as she Force-pushed it back into the room’s dark interior to avoid being splashed by its blood. She took up a position in front of the doorway, the glow from her lightsaber’s humming yellow blade casting at least a little light into the room. It was apparently a barracks, without a hint of amber anywhere she could see. It was also apparently empty, but she would have to step inside to be sure and there wasn’t a chance in all the hells she was going to do that—not with the way these things were practically invisible in the Force. She shouted, “Everyone get by me!”

And a faint ripple in the Force and a shout from Padme signaled the _next_ attack. Asajj whirled around just in time for Padme to push a stumbling Threefer into her arms as the former Senator’s own glowing white blade bisected a creature in the doorway on the other side of the corridor. The collapsing monster’s body shielded the _next_ one’s lunge, and Padme’s shout turned into a scream as jaws closed on her wrist and the lightsaber still clutched in her hand dropped to burn a line in the steel floor for a moment before the blade winked out.

Asajj reached out through the the Force and yanked Padme back against her and Threefer, careful to keep the lightsaber in her hand away from both the others as she stepped backwards into the barracks that she was praying was as empty as it had looked. The creature that had bitten off Padme’s hand _hissed_ at her as it tensed to lunge, and with Threefer in one arm and Padme leaning against her with one hand gripped tight around the stump of the other to keep blood from spurting out there was nothing Asajj could do about it—only for a point-blank blaster bolt from Joker to shatter one side of its head even as the yellow-green blade of Ahsoka’s shorter shoto lightsaber thrown from the back pierced through its other side.

“ _Padme!_ ” Anakin’s scream blasted from Asajj’s earbud, and she staggered with her burden as the floor shook under her feet and steel panels fell from walls and ceiling as cracks ran through the underlying rock. Anakin leaped toward the doorway the monsters had come out of, only to be body-checked by Ahsoka and shoved toward Padme, Asajj, and Threefer as her shoto yanked from the head of the corpse lying at their feet in a bubbling pool of its own blood and leaped to her hand.

Asajj didn’t hear any orders so they must have been communicating through their bond, but Anakin turned toward Padme and grabbed the medkit from her belt. Yanking it open, he grabbed scrabbled for a pressure bandage and dropped the rest while he tore open the package and hastily wrapped the bandage over her stump. Gathering his white and shaking Bondmate and wife against him with one arm, he turned to face the other doorway as his lightsaber leaped up from the floor where he’d dropped it into his hand.

Ahsoka stepped through the doorway into the hall. “ _It’s empty, those were the only three_.”

“ _But not the only three left in the base,_ ” Jenni reported, _“and the rest of them are headed your way,_ fast _. You have to move now!_ ”

Without another word Ahsoka raced ahead down the corridor as Anakin snatched up Padme in a bridal carry and summoned her lightsaber to his hand. He knocked her hand off it, hooked it to his belt, and glanced down at Fun’tac’s corpse for a moment before shaking his head and racing off after his Bondmate. Asajj was right behind him carrying Threefer over her shoulder, summoning Fun’tac’s blaster to her empty hand as she went, Joker and Master Unduli bringing up the rear. Asajj didn’t have any trouble realizing what that glance and headshake was about, she’d noticed during the war that the Grand Army of the Republic had a custom she’d considered irrational at the time of not leaving their dead behind—not something the Separatists with their droid armies had had to worry about much, or her own matriarchal people had cared about much. But with two of them already hampered with two _living_ bodies, they couldn’t justify encumbering a third with a dead one.

Another ten minutes running, with Ahsoka presumably being guided by the Bond’s constant sense of where they all were, and they found themselves piling into a tiny room that Asajj didn’t recognize. But Anakin did, looking around at a long, thick steel tube running the length of one side of the room to what must be the outside wall of the asteroid base and the console Ahsoka was already standing at examining something she’d brought up on a projected holoscreen. He gently lowered a visibly shaking Padme to the floor. (She had done her best, but Asajj had been able to hear her moans of pain hissing through clenched teeth every time Anakin’s feet hat hit the floor as he ran.) “ _A missile launch bay. Apparently Sidious’s pawns didn’t want anyone to be able to sneak up on them from behind, and with all the junk around them turbolasers would be nearly useless. Primitive, though, they must not have wanted to keep the stone floor as thick they would need to for a standard launch tube. And_ that _means_ —”

“ _That we can use the tube to leave the base_ ,” Ahsoka finished. “ _But we can’t just cut our way into the tube, if we do a pressure hatch will close at the end sealing it off. And if we cut through_ that _, I don’t fancy trying to get the wounded out through the tube with an entire outpost’s atmosphere trying to push its way out with us. Cheap bastards didn’t bother to install bulkhead doors, the pressure will rip out any doors still closed_. _And for accessing the launch tube we’re in the wrong room, we want_ that _one, it must be the armory_.” She pointed at a closed door on the interior wall where the tube entered the room.

“Right.” Without bothering to put down Threefer, Asajj strode over. She didn’t even bother to try to see if it would open, just sliced through the lock panel with her lightsaber and hammered the door open with a Force-enhanced kick. She stepped into the armory and glanced around—standard Separatist tech and setup, racks of missiles and the mechanical arms to move them from rack to tube, which meant the panel to disable the missile feed would be ... there. The panel showered sparks as her lightsaber thrust through it. “You can run the missile launch sequence now without risking blowing up the _Tom Joad_. You’ll get a missile feed failure alert, you can override it safely.”

“ _Right_ ,” Ahsoka replied, “ _starting it now_ —”

Even as the tube’s hatch popped open and the expected alarm sounded, blaster fire erupted from the other room. “ _Here they come!_ ” Joker shouted.

Asajj lowered Threefer to the ground as Padme shuffled into the armory, clutching her stump to her chest and gritting her teeth against the pain, Anakin right behind her. With a nod to Anakin, Asajj walked past them into the control room. Joker was at the door firing down the corridor, Master Unduli against the wall by the door ready to deal with anything that managed to make it through the blaster fire, just as in the central control room. Asajj said briskly, “Ahsoka, I’m taking over. I know Separatist equipment the best and Anakin’s going to need help getting the wounded into the tube one at a time—one of you is going to need to go first.”

“ _Groc and Craft are at the airlock with grappling lines_ ,” Jenni added, “ _But having a Dancer come through first that can shape the currents to the airlock would be best_.”

“And no way is Anakin going first and leaving Padme behind.”

“ _No. And these monsters are just the skirmishers, the real mob that gathered outside the control center will be here within fifteen minutes, so hurry_.”

Joker cursed. Ahsoka glanced toward Master Unduli, and sighed when the Jedi nodded toward the door. “ _Don’t get yourself killed, Master, if you do Barriss will be a long time forgiving us_.” Without waiting for a response she rushed for the door. Less than a minute later she announced, “ _I’m in the tube_.”

“Launching.”

After that it was routine, Ahsoka followed by Threefer, then Padme, then Anakin. Even as the stud signaling the outer hatch opening for Anakin lit up, Asajj called out, “Master Unduli, you’re up!” She nodded toward the door. The Jedi hesitated, then nodded back and headed for the armory. Asajj said, “Joker, you’re next.”

“ _And how will you get out? You aren’t going to be able to run the panel remotely_.” Joker’s voice was calm, even as he continued to fire through the door to the hallway at targets Asajj couldn’t see at this angle. They were _very_ lucky that the missile control room was at the _end_ of the hallway, not one of the rooms that were along it.

Asajj had been wondering the same thing. The stud signaling that the tube was closed lit up, and she opened the outer hatch for Master Unduli. “I’ll cut my way out.”

“ _Jenni, how close is the main wave?_ ”

“ _Maybe a couple minutes, you need to_ move _!_ ” Jenni’s voice was a lot less calm that Joker’s.

“ _Asajj, you aren’t going to be able to cut your way into the missile tube then out the outer hatch with these things on your tail. You go. I’ll last long enough to run the controls, I was trained on standard Separatist equipment_.” Asajj groped for something to say, and he glanced at her for a moment—she could see his smile through his enviro-suit’s helmet—before refocusing on the corridor. “ _Asajj, it’s you Force-users’ job to come up with the miracles that save lives and win battles, it’s our job to keep you alive long enough to come up with the miracles. Let me do my job, so you can do yours_.”

“ _He’s right, Asajj, and even if he isn’t you don’t have_ time _. Say hello for me, Joker, I’ll see you on the other side. The party never ends_.”

Asajj struggled for a moment to come up with a counter-argument, but Jenni was right—they didn’t have time; if she tried to fight him over it, they would _both_ die. Voice harsh, she repeated, “See you on the other side.” She opened the missile tube, then straightened and gave him the Grand Army of the Republic’s salute—the first time she’d ever done so for anyone. “The console is yours.”

Even as she ran for the armory door, she heard the suppressing blaster fire behind her stop. A screeching sound she only now realized she’d been hearing ever since the firing had started, that had to be those monsters when they weren’t trying to be stealthy, was rapidly getting louder, but was cut off by the closing hatch to the tube.

And then the outer hatch irised open and she was pushing herself out into empty space, the _Tom Joad_ only a couple dozen meters away, the light around the airlock shining bright showing Master Unduli ‘climbing’ a floating cord ‘up’ to it ... the same floating cord that ended a few meters from Asajj. And behind her, the dim presence she’d been focused on since abandoning the console winked out.

But Joker had lasted long enough to get her out, as he’d promised.

As she reached out with the Force to pull the cord over to her, she could hear nothing but breathing through her earbud.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, this chapter is _really_ late. Partly that's because of the size of the chapter, partly Thanksgiving, but mostly because this _clusterfuck_ of an election has really messed me up. Ah well, we'll see if I can get myself back into my usual routine now that it's mostly over—until 2022, at least, when we might get to do this all over again.
> 
> So, two more smaller chapters or one more bigger chapter and this story's put to bed ... novella length, as intended.


	8. Revelations

The _Tom Joad_ ’s common room was quiet when Luminara followed Jenni in. Now that they had gotten Threefer into a bacta tank and done what they could for Padme’s stump, retrieved the Bond’s temporary airlock and Luminara’s jet pack and ship from in and by the landing bay, and gotten some distance and a few asteroids between them and the outpost’s horrors, everyone was crashing and dealing with their losses at the same time. Anakin was on one couch with Padme curled up on his lap, and Barriss was practically fused to Ahsoka’s side on the other—Luminara wasn’t sure how the young Togrutan could breath, with how tightly her pregnant friend was clutching at her. Two of the ship’s three droids—C-3PO and R2-D2, if she remembered correctly, were by one wall, the astromech plugged into an info-port whistling softly to itself while the protocol droid stood beside it with its hand on its friend’s turret.

(And Luminara strongly suspected that ‘friend’ was the right word, and ‘his’ better than ‘its’—that the Bond had ignored the Republic’s laws against allowing droids to achieve sapience. She could see how that would be useful with their limited resources in the Outer Rim, especially with the absent D-FN8 acting as both nanny and bodyguard for their children.)

Jenni waved Luminara over to one of the seats by the gaming console and walked over to sit beside Barriss, gently rubbing her back. Only now did Luminara notice that her former apprentice was shivering.

Without looking up, Jenni said, “I imagine you have some questions.”

“I— Yes.” Luminara pulled her attention away from the interesting group dynamics she was seeing, there were more important issues to deal with. On the other hand ... “I thought Bonds were more of a ‘group marriage’ thing?”

Jenni looked up, surprised, then grinned. “Normally it is, or was. But unlike the Bonds of my time, except for me this one’s formed by people with preexisting relationships. We’ve fallen into ... mini-bonds, me and Ahsoka, Barriss and Ahsoka, Anakin and Padme, Anakin and Ahsoka—Ahsoka’s kinda the linchpin for the Bond. That’s been fading as we all get used to each other—the game of musical beds we have going on helps—so I expect eventually we’ll get to what I remember.” Jenni’s grin widened at Luminara’s burning cheeks. “So, next question?”

Luminara coughed into her fist, fighting down her blush. She didn’t know why she was embarrassed, as a Jedi she had not just read of but seen any number of arrangements, some of them bizarre—there was the way the Uyot practically used copulation like a handshake if they had the time, with no concerns about privacy at all, and she hadn’t given it so much as a sideways glance. _Maybe because I know some of them, fought beside them, even finished raising Barriss?_

Jenni waved a hand as if trying to get her attention, and Luminara yanked her wandering attention back into line. “Ah ... right.” Taking a deep breath and ignoring her still-burning cheeks, Luminara settled her normal serenity about her like a favorite comforting cloak. “You told the Council that you wouldn’t be training anyone in the use of the Dark Side.”

“I did,” Jenni instantly agreed, “and I haven’t.” She glanced over at Anakin, then back to Luminara. “Everything you saw—and sensed—in the outpost was Anakin’s native talent. He’s been swept into the Void only once since he and Padme joined the Bond, this is the first time he’s actually chosen to reach out to those dark currents.”

“And that doesn’t concern you?”

Jenni shook her head, her white-and-blue hair swirling about her cheeks. “No, not really. Remember how I described making use of the Void to chemotherapy? Two times in two years, with his ties to the Bond and his love for his children the lifeline to pull him out, is well within Anakin’s personal tolerance. And as the galaxy adjusts to its new reality and things settle in the Outer Rim, I expect there will be even less need for Anakin to do so. There is no danger that we are incubating a new Darth Sidious.”

Luminara gazed intently at Jenni for a long moment, then glanced over at Anakin ... an Anakin with his wife still curled up on his lap, not a hint of yellow in his eyes. And while her own Force-backed empathy wasn’t as strong as that of the Bond with each other, or what Barriss had told her Jenni had with everyone, the Jedi master could still sense Anakin’s calm—not a hint of the underlying anger that was so much a part of a Darksider’s presence.

It didn’t match what she had learned in the Temple about the Dark Side, the Dark Siders she had encountered, or even what she had seen with her own former Padawan’s descent into darkness—but if there was one thing Darth Sidious had forced the Order—those that survived—to give more than lip service to, if only to themselves, it was that they didn’t know everything about the ways of the Force. As illustrated by her former Padawan, clearly happy to be pregnant, in love with Ahsoka and loved by all the Bond, _also_ without a hint of yellow in her eyes. The emotions Luminara was sensing through the Force didn’t lie.

And however powerful the lesson in humility the Order’s survivors had received, she still could not imagine a Dark Sider capable of loving anyone, not even themselves. But still ...

“What if Padme dies?”

“Then she dies.” Jenni’s reply was abrupt, almost curt. But she sighed and continued. “Our self-assumed job policing the Outer Rim isn’t _safe_. Padme’s role is more that of judge, diplomat, and investigator than combatant, but the Tao’s currents sweep us _all_ into dangerous waters and sooner or later it will catch up with us—one at a time, pairs, even possibly all at once, as unlikely as that is. In the event that Anakin somehow outlives Padme, he’ll have the rest of us, especially Ahsoka and his children, to see him through.”

Luminara gusted out a sigh as she leaned back and stared at the ceiling. “My report to the Council is going to be _interesting_.”

Soft laughter circled the room, and Padme turned her head to actually _look_ at their guest without lifting it from Anakin’s shoulder. “So, did you learn what you came here for? Can you tell us why you’re out here, now?”

Luminara considered the question. The Council would come to its own consensus, but that didn’t mean she didn’t have her own opinion and couldn’t ... give it a helping hand coming to the _right_ consensus. She straightened in her seat, refocusing on the Bond around her. “Yes, I think I can. It’s one of the crechelings—she’s like Skywalker.” The others bolted upright where they sat, all cuddling forgotten as the tension in the room suddenly skyrocketed, and she hastily waved a dismissive hand. “She doesn’t have the issues he brought with him from slavery, that we didn’t know how to deal with, she’s creche-raised. But she is _passionate_. Before Order 67 she would never have been chosen as a Padawan, she simply _cannot_ divorce herself from her emotions; even now, with our relaxed standards on attachments, she is almost certainly too much for any current Knight or Master. We don’t have the culture for it, any attempt is likely to end in tragedy, especially since we’re considering asking those in a position to take Padawans to double up—which means less individual supervision for each Padawan. But she is powerful in the Force—not Skywalker-powerful, but powerful enough—and after our losses to not have her on the front lines when she matures into her strength would be a monumental waste.”

“And then you thought of us,” Ahsoka said solemnly. The Togrutan would understand the situation Chiyrsa was in, Luminara thought, her own hadn’t been _that_ different—or Obi-wan’s, for that matter, and he had been the one to finally suggest the Youxia Bond.

Luminara nodded her agreement. “Then we thought of you, and needed to verify that it was safe to ask you to take over her training.”

Jenni leaned forward, intent. “What’s her race?”

“She’s Human. That matters?”

“Yes, Ahsoka and I were lucky that Humans and Togrutans are emotionally and sexually compatible.” She and Ahsoka gazed at each other for a moment, eyes softening, and their hands rose to touch the broach the other still wore around their neck with their bite mark. “Well, compatible _enough_. What’s her name?”

“Chiyrsa.”

“Oh, my.” At C-3PO’s exclamation, everyone turned to look at him. The golden droid clumped around to face them and ignored his friend’s whistled interrogative to say in his primly proper tone, “Forgive me for interrupting, but is this child from Thothcant?”

“Yes, she is,” Luminara replied, “how did you know?”

“I recognized the word from the primary language of that planet. But in that language ‘chiyrsa’ is not a name, it is a number. And on that planet numbers are never used as proper names, not for any born into the clans.”

Luminara felt herself pale at the primly given revelation, and what it must mean to a crecheling found as a baby—at an orphanage—even as Ahsoka put her realization into words.

“Are crechelings still taught the primary language and culture of their planet of origin?”

“Yes, they are,” Luminara replied, her voice strained.

The Bond glanced at each other, then Jenni said, “It look like we’ll need to make a detour to Terra on our way back out to the Outer Rim. But I suspect we _will_ be adopting her.” She grinned slyly at Luminara. “Don’t worry, we won’t get there until after you’ve had a chance to report to the Council.”

Luminara kept her expression serene through long experience, but soft laughter swept the compartment anyway—Bond-trained empathic sense at work, she was sure, here at least was one group that would never be taken in by the masks Jedi wore to hide even from themselves. Time for a change of subject. “Where will you go, if you aren’t headed straight to Terra?”

“Naboo.” Padme responded, lifting her arm ending in a tourniquet-covered stump (a _proper_ tourniquet, with a built-in bacta film dispenser and sensors). “I’ll need a new hand to match Ani’s, and we’ll want Threefer to be checked out, see if he’ll need a new arm. And we’ll be dropping off the data we recovered with Queen Apailana’s scientists, see if it has what we hope.”

“Yes, that data, can you tell me now what you were looking for?”

The Bond exchanged glances again—Luminara was beginning to suspect that they did that so that they could let others know they were communicating privately—and Ahsoka sighed and rubbed at her face. “I’m the only one in the Bond right now that can’t have Anakin’s baby, we want to change that. No one seems to have researched cross-Togrutan-Human fertilization, or if they did they didn’t bother to publish anything, so we were wondering if there might be something in Sith alchemy that could do the job. The answer seems to be ‘maybe’. And no, it wasn’t worth the lives we paid for it.”

Barriss gripped her hand. “It wasn’t your fault, Ahsoka, none of us knew what we were getting into. And what we've found will be used by many more than just you, Joker and Fun'tac's legacy going forward will be beautiful.”

Ahsoka found a smile for her lover, but shook her head. “Not my fault, but my— _our_ —responsibility. The clones see it as their duty to keep us alive, even at the cost of their own, but it is _our_ duty not to waste them.”

“And we didn’t,” Anakin said. He had relaxed like the rest with Luminara’s explanation of Chiyrsa’s situation, and was once again hugging the wife draped across his lap. “Now that we know about those hellspawn, we need to figure out what to do about them. I think we should whistle up a Republic cruiser and blow this entire asteroid cluster into dust.” His expression didn’t change and his voice remained calm, but the air began to feel heavy, just a hint of taint filling the room. Until Padme turned to kiss him full on the lips ... the kiss went on and on—and the feeling of the gathering Dark vanished like a popped soap bubble.

Luminara found herself laughing. “Who would have thought that a kiss is the antidote for the Dark Side?”

“Hey, if you think a kiss is effective, just think how _sex_ is!” Ahsoka quipped, and the room filled with laughter again as Luminara’s cheeks heated ... again.

At least she wasn’t the only one blushing, as Anakin cleared his throat and continued, “Uhm, yes, anyway, there’s still the inertial tracker we have attached to our hull. We’ll need to clear it—”

“No.”

Everyone turned to look at Jenni. “No?” Anakin repeated.

She shook her head, the white streaks through her blue hair shifting in a way that Ahsoka’s own blue streaks on white montrals and lekku never would. “I know, I’m the one that points out the Tao’s interests and ours don’t necessarily coincide, that we have our sapience so we can _use_ it. But in this case the galaxy is in turmoil, and there are worse things out there than a non-sapient—”

She broke off, and the room fell silent. Luminara thought that perhaps—if she wasn’t imagining it—she could sense just the edge of the Bond’s communication ... argument, she suspected, as the silence stretched and the rest of the room’s occupants grew more and more tense.

Finally, the tension broke, and everyone slumped where they sat. Anakin gusted out a sigh. “All right, we’ll look through the data we’ve recovered on our way back to Jussul. If we like what we find we’ll leave the tracker alone, and see if the Republic’s willing to lend us a cruiser after Barriss gives birth and we see if the Council still wants us to adopt Chiyrsa. Whoever the tracker belongs to will have to move fast to beat us back, with Jenni at the helm.”

“Why wait until then?” Luminara inquired. “Why not have Jenni guide the cruiser back, and you rejoin her on Jussul when you’re done with everything else?”

Jenni shook her head again. “The problem is that we don’t know what effect interstellar distances would have on our bond, and don’t plan to experiment to find out. The turbulence of the Tao’s currents when we considered it suggest that the results would be unpleasant. Wherever the Bond goes, we go as a group.” She groaned and pushed herself to her feet. “Let’s get you back to your ship so I can program the first jump back toward Jussul. Then I can get one more conversation out of the way before I hit the sack.”

Luminara hastily rose to her feet. She had no idea why Jenni would want to engage in exercise after the day they’d just had (that _was_ what that expression was about ... right?), but _she_ wanted this day to be _over_.

/\

Jenni winced when she walked into the _Tom Joad_ ’s small infirmary, and Keda’s simmering anger spiked to white-hot as soon as the former and maybe-future waitress saw her. Fortunately, the young woman quickly turned her attention back to bacta tube she was standing by—and the comatose form of her sometimes-lover floating naked except for a loincloth—and her anger settled back down to a simmer, submerged by concern. The other lover of the pair (separately, as far as Jenni knew the three had never shared a bed all at once) looked up from where she was reading a pad in the chair next to the infirmary’s patient couch, but that same simmering anger was missing—Asajj knew and accepted the risks of the life they had chosen, as Keda hadn’t yet.

But she would, if she continued on the path she had chosen. If ...

Jenni stepped over next to Keda to gaze at the sleeping Threefer. She’d rather he was awake for this, but she needed to break Keda out of the anger that had been born in the last moments of the away team’s escape, before it had a chance to be set in stone. But first ... “What did Zeethree”—the ship’s medical droid, currently shut down in its charging cradle—“have to say about him?”

Keda turned her head to glare at her for a moment, before turning back to Threefer. “He said the arm can be saved, but he’ll need an artificial skin graft.”

“Good. From Jussul we’re heading for Naboo, they can take care of that there.”

Keda’s shoulders slumped, her anger washed away for a moment by a wave of immense relief. Jenni could understand that, artificial skin—the _real_ thing, that could actually be linked to the patient’s nervous system and so provide a sense of touch, wasn’t all that expensive or hard to get ... on a Core World. In the Outer Rim, it was out of reach of all but those that were wealthy enough to import their own health care.

And Jenni wasn’t going to have a better opportunity. _Let’s lance this boil before it grows_. “So, Keda, what’s wrong?”

Keda stiffened again, her anger returning, but she didn’t turn away from Threefer. “What makes you think that anything is wrong?”

“Empath, remember? You aren’t hiding anything. But I’m _not_ telepathic, at least outside the Bond. So, what’s wrong?”

Finally, Keda turned to face her, fists clenched. “ ‘The party never ends’.” Is _that_ something to say to a man who’s about to sacrifice his life for one of your own?”

“Ah, so _that’s_ what it is.” Jenni sighed and stepped over to sit in the chair next to Asajj. “But I didn’t say that to ‘a man’, I said it to _Joker_.” She glanced over at the Dathomiran studiously ignoring them. “Asajj, why don’t you explain it?” Keda would accept it better from her other lover than from the woman she was furious with.

Something Asajj apparently understood. She looked up from her pad with a sigh. “Keda, you have to understand the Bond—well, Jenni, mostly, since she was raised by a Bond, but the others seem to be coming around to her way of thinking. It must be all the sex.” She grinned at the chortle that forced out of Keda. “When Jenni says the party never ends, she usually means that life is to be enjoyed _now_ , not months or years down the road whenever you accomplish whatever you think will make you happy ... that if you aren’t enjoying life now, you aren’t doing it right.

“But there’s another meaning, and this isn’t the first time it’s come up ... that the party doesn’t end just because you die.” She shrugged. “Most people—hells, most _races_ —would tell her she’s much too optimistic about the afterlife, but she doesn’t care.”

“So ... so ‘see you on the other side’—”

“Was me telling Joker that eventually I’d be rejoining his party,” Jenni explained. “And I will, none of us gets out of this life alive.” She smiled at Keda’s new involuntary chortle, but sobered immediately. “More than that, I doubt any of the Bond is going to die in bed. The Bond’s mission out here _isn’t safe_ , and however many of the clones insist on following Joker and Fun’tac’s example, sooner or later the inevitable will catch up to us.

“Which brings us to you.”

“Me?” Keda asked. Her hostility had faded, replaced by shame that Jenni was ignoring and now mixed with confusion.

“Yes, you.” Jenni felt her knees beginning to quiver a little, and stepped over to where she could lean against the wall. Her day may not have been as physically demanding as the away team’s but it had been just as terrifying, and riding the edge just short of total immersion into the currents of the Tao—where her will became it’s will—without tipping in was _exhausting_. She rubbed at her cheeks and sighed. “Today was _not_ how I wanted to introduce you to our world—I’ve had worse days, but not since Ahsoka pulled me out of what she called a Force vortex ... I think she said? Maybe the rest of the Bond, or Asajj and Threefer when we pull him out, can tell you of worse days, wars can do that. But it was bad, as bad as it’s likely to get out here in the Rim. Do you still want to join our merry band of adventurers?”

It took a moment for Keda to parse Jenni’s statement, but Jenni was _very_ relieved to sense their guest’s confusion shift almost instantly to determination. “Yes, I do.”

“Oh, good.” Jenni’s shoulders slumped in relief, and she had to brace herself to keep from sliding down the wall. She took a moment to gather her strength, and pushed herself away from the wall. “Since that’s the case, I have an offer for the two of you, and Threefer when he’s awake. I would like the three of you to form the second new Youxia Bond, here in the Outer Rim.”

As Keda’s jaw dropped, Asajj shot bolt upright, her pad sliding unnoticed off her lap onto the floor.

Deciding she’d tried to play the macho action hero long enough, Jenni walked over to the patient’s couch (stiffly, so her knees wouldn’t have the opportunity to decide they didn’t want to support her anymore) and pulled on the Tao’s currents to lift her up onto it. Even as she allowed herself to sag under the weight of her exhaustion, she grinned at the two stunned-speechless women. “Nothing to say?”

Asajj finally found her voice. “You can’t be _serious_.”

“As a heart attack.” Asajj’s snort said she remembered the quip from before, but at Keda’s confused expression Jenni added, “Absolutely.” She sighed again, running a hand through her hair. “I can’t say I planned to recreate the Youxia Bonds here-and-now, Ahsoka and I kind of fell into it to keep me from going insane from the silence in my head.” She reached up to touch the broach with Ahsoka’s bite marks on its band around her neck. “We _certainly_ didn’t intend for anyone else to join us, though I’m happy that the others did. But it’s time to expand the franchise.”

“But why me?” Keda demanded. “I’m not Force-sensitive.”

Jenni shook her head. “Yes, you are, everything that lives is at least a spot of light in the currents sweeping us all along—you’re simply a flickering ember instead of a dancing flame. But that doesn’t mean you can’t join a Bond, and once you do your ember will grow brighter. Padme was just an ember before she married Anakin, after all, and while she’ll probably never burn so bright that the Jedi Order would consider her a Knight she does well enough.” Better, in her own way, Jenni was hoping that her Bondmate’s subtle touch was a function of how her flame had slowly strengthened rather than burning bright from the beginning, and so would be shared by Keda—not that she had any intention of telling _Keda_ that.

Jenni turned her attention to Asajj and grinned. “For you, you’ve said before how much you miss Knight Voss—usually when you’ve gotten too deep into the ship’s stores of Corellian ale—but Keda and Threefer aren’t just cases of ‘if you can’t be with the one you love, love the ones you’re with’. You can’t hide your love from an empath.” Her grin softened into a gentle smile. “Really, if the three of you can handle the loss of privacy, I think you’d be very happy together.” And in a few years, once they’d gotten their feet under them and had some confidence in their bond, if he still lived they could invite Quinlan to join. Jenni knew the thought had already occurred to Asajj, from the fragile hope blossoming in her friend, and knew that Threefer and Keda wouldn’t be able to help but see it as well if they bonded ... but they’d see the love she had for each of them as well, for their own sakes, so that would be all right. And from the emotional mix she was picking up from the two—shock, wonder, hope, all churning together—she expected they would agree to form their own Bond. That would take care of a Bond for one of the Skywalker twins, once they grew up, and Chiyrsa if the Council still wanted to pass her to them. Now they just needed to figure out what to do with the _other_ twin.

Groaning, she pushed herself to her feet. “It’s been a long day, and Threefer isn’t going to wake up any time soon. Think it over when you aren’t running on fumes. I suggest you two head to bed, that’s where _I’m_ headed.” A bed that would be a bit lonely, she suspected—Barriss would need to bunk with Ahsoka for her own emotional health, and Jenni figured after Anakin’s dive into the Void he’d be extra-clingy with Padme ... he had been when he’d been swept in, after all, she didn’t see why it would be any different when he’d dove in.

As she clumped down the passageway toward her room, Jenni wondered if maybe they could find another Jedi or two on Terra that would consider joining a Bond. She felt a little heartsore at the thought, but they _could_ split up into two Bonds—Anakin, Padme, and whoever for one, and Jenni, Ahsoka, and Barriss for the other, another male when they could find one. That would give them the third Bond they needed for the other Skywalker twin. _Something to consider for another day, we have time_. Though not _much_ time, the twins would soon be old enough for the parental bond....

 _“Nicely done_ ,” Ahsoka complimented through the Bond. “ _And like you say, a worry for another day. N_ _ow come to bed—_ our _bed, with me and Barriss. It’ll be a little tight, but as clingy as Barriss of going to be not_ that _tight ... for you, anyway._ _And it’s not like we’ll need room to do anything but sleep_.”

 _“That sounds wonderful, I'm on my_ way.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more short chapter to wrap this up and I'll be putting this novella to bed.
> 
> Much of my inspiration for Bonds came from the line marriage in Robert A. Heinlein's _The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress_. In Heinlein's creation a particular line marriage was an ongoing institution, with new blood being brought in as elderly members die, the line marriage itself long outlasting any individual marriage. For the peaceful, utopian society of Jenni's childhood, the individual Bonds have a lifespan measured in centuries with the ages of the members across the spectrum—this was the Bond Jenni first joined when she turned sixteen, for the months before the Void Slaves' coup, an intergenerational family. (It _wasn't_ the Bond she spent most of the next four years in, made up of survivors that found each other, those survivors were all young for obvious reasons.) But there isn't much room for romance—children, a few years after birth, have their own bond with their parental Bond that lasted until they turned sixteen, at which point they would join another Bond with the mutual agreement of their parental Bond, the new Bond, and themselves. Hence Jenni's problem ( _all_ of their problem, really, though Jenni's the one most aware of it). As Anakin and Padme's twins, Barriss's boy, any additional children any of the women might bear grow up, they're going to need mature, established Bonds to join, and for obvious reasons it can't be that of their parents'.


	9. The Littlest Angel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, almost three weeks since my last chapter for _Phoenix Rising_. Partly that's because this "little final chapter" ballooned well beyond my expectations, to the point that there's going to be one more chapter following this one. (Though it'll be a look at elsewhere, this chapter gives a fond farewell to the Bond.) And partly, the delay is because I ended up doing something I almost never do, rewriting much of the chapter, both revisions and additions. Normally my writing style tends to be a planned out general plot mixed with 'stream of consciousness' detailed writing, to the point that on rare occasions it can end up altering the plot. This and the _final_ final chapter are more extreme examples of this, even if they are a little late to alter the plot of the story itself ... much.
> 
> The chapter title comes from one of my favorite Christmas stories when I was a kid. Don't read too much into that, though, it's pretty much just the first section of that story that the inspiration comes from.
> 
> Also fair warning, the latter part of this chapter is very much **NSFW**!

_Several months later:_

Sixty trudged through the stone halls of the new Jedi Temple. She wasn’t sure she liked this place. Yes, the memory of coming out of hyperspace and sensing the entire planet welcome them like family warmed her when she was especially lonely, and she could still feel that welcome when she opened herself up to the world around her, but their new home was inside a mountain, and it was all corridors and turbolifts and relatively small rooms ... it didn’t have any _really_ large spaces, not yet. She missed the gardens of the old Temple. And opening herself up to the planet’s warm embrace would inevitably bring a rebuke from the first Knight or Master she passed. All Jedi were supposed to keep their thoughts and especially their feelings to themselves, and if there was a way to open herself to the world without opening herself to everyone _in_ the world, she hadn’t found it.

If there _was_ a way to do that, the answer probably lay in the class she was late for, but there was a reason she was late, she hated meditation. No, ‘hated’ was too mild a term, she _loathed_ it. The unseen walls that surrounded all the adults around her were bad enough, but when she looked inside herself for her connection to the Force that was supposed to surround and pervade everyone and everything, even the muted presence of the other children vanished and she was alone in a world gone cold and sterile.

“Chiyrsa, there you are! Why aren’t you in class?”

Sixty looked up at the call from her crèche mother—a tall Balosar in loose robes, with twin antennapalps sticking up through blonde hair turned toward her wayward ward. Chiyrsa’s cheeks were already heating at Knight Taurendi’s question, but her instant excuse vanished—blown away by her shock at one of the two presences beside her Balosar crèche mother.

Master Unduli she knew, the Mirialan had helped escort the younglings to the new Temple and she’d seen her around the Temple occasionally—she was nothing unusual, the same unyielding walls around her as all the other adults. But the unknown Human—! She didn’t have the walls that closed off all the other adults, that turned their presences into muted glows, and she was like the heat of a bonfire’s flames warming Sixty’s soul ... and she huffed as she was forced back a step when Sixty leaped and slammed into her. Her arms rose to wrap around the child suddenly clinging to her.

“Well, there’s no point in asking,” the woman said, “she’s going with us whether she wants to or not ... not that I think there’s much doubt whether she wants to.” Her soul’s flame seemed to stutter with unheard laughter.

“I guess not,” Knight Taurendi agreed, a hint of laughter in her voice (the most emotion she ever displayed, but her charges had gotten skilled at reading her moods). “But why is she going whether or not she wants to?”

“Because she’s a natural-born empath, and as children they instinctively bond with the adults in their lives, to give them an anchor in the chaotic emotional storm around them—at least, that’s how it worked for my little brother.” Sixty felt a spike of loss pierce through the woman holding her for a second, before being acknowledged and set aside with the ease of long practice. “That she hadn’t bonded with anyone before now ... probably your Jedi training blocking her, poor girl. Of course, that same Jedi training keeping her from being inundated with everyone’s emotions—all the adults, at least—probably saved her sanity, so I guess it’s a wash.”

“Perhaps, and it does seem pointless to ask, but we ought to make it official.”

“I suppose so.” The lady holding her crouched down, and gently but firmly pried Sixty away from her to stand on her own two feet—though she kept her hands on Sixty’s shoulders as she gazed at her with warm blue eyes. “Chiyrsa, I’m Jennifer Allston, but you can call me Jenni. I’m a member of the Youxia Bond—well, _a_ Youxia Bond now. You probably haven’t heard anything about us, but your caregivers think you might be happier with us instead of the Jedi Order. Would you like to join—?”

Sixty’s head was nodding vigorously before Jenni was finished. “Yes! Yes! Yes!” Get to be around that blazing welcome all the time? She couldn’t think of anything more heavenly.

Jenni giggled. “That makes it official. So, Chiyrsa, we’ll need to collect your belongings and—”

She broke off for a moment and hummed thoughtfully. “Chiyrsa, you’ve been learning your native language, right?”

Sixty nodded.

“So you know what your name means?”

Sixty nodded again, more hesitantly this time.

“Well, ‘sixty’ isn’t really a proper name, I think you should get a new one to go with your new family. How about ... Andaxia? Would you like that?”

_Andaxia_. She repeated it to herself a couple times, ignoring the way her crèche mother had stiffened, suddenly actually radiating a hint of remorse, as she considered it thoughtfully. It was pretty, but ... “What does it mean?”

“In one of my homeworld’s languages, it means ‘Gentle Hero’.”

“ ‘Gentle Hero’.” Sixty—no, Andaxia—smiled shyly. “I like that.”

“Andaxia it is, then.” Jenni stood up and scooped her new daughter up into her arms. “So let’s get your belongings—”

“Um ...” Master Unduli spoke up, hesitantly. “Chi— That is, Andaxia doesn’t really have any belongings, beyond a few changes of clothing.”

“None? Not even a few toys?”

“No,” Knight Taurendi replied. “There might be toys she prefers, but they belong to the crèche rather than any of the younglings.”

Andaxia could sense her new ... crèche mother? ... Jenni’s distaste, but the Human just said, “Right, ascetic order. You must be doing something right, you’ve survived more centuries of war than the Youxia Bonds did of peace, but ... well, if we find any Dancing children that we think are constitutionally incapable of dealing with the lack of privacy, we’ll send them your way. Let’s get her clothing and let her say goodbye to any friends she’s made, and get back to the ship. The _Frithjof_ should be here at any time. Wait, do her clothes include a winter coat? She’ll need one, our landspeeder has an open cockpit, it’ll be a freezing half-hour ride without one.”

“I’ll fetch one along with her clothes,” Knight Taurendi said. “Why don’t you head for the cafeteria? Her clan is practicing meditation right now, you can get something to eat while you’re waiting.”

“Okay, good idea.”

Andaxia felt Knight Taurendi’s wall of ice fade as she hurried away. “Come on, the closest cafeteria is this way,” Master Unduli said, and the two strode down the corridor. Andaxia didn’t mind how the pace and the added burden of her weight made the ride a slightly bumpy one, she was content to just luxuriate in her new crèche mother’s presence.

After a bit, Master Unduli asked, “So why did you land your ship so far from the Temple? You can’t have missed the landing platforms we’ve built.”

“No, we didn’t miss them. I love what you’ve done here. It doesn’t _feel_ like it did when the Bonds were here, but at least it’s come alive again.” Andaxia felt another spike of loss, washed away by amusement. “But we parked so far away for _your_ comfort, not mine. After Threefer got fixed up by Queen Apailana’s people and we left Naboo, he, Keda, and Asajj Bonded. They’re still in the ‘fucking like bunnies’ stage, and we figured we wouldn’t inflict that on all of you by parking right outside your front door.”

“Thank you for that!” Andaxia had no idea what they were talking about, but she found herself giggling at how heartfelt Master Unduli’s gratitude was. And amazed that she was sensing anything at all, the Master’s own walls had somehow become ... thin, porous.

In spite of the slightly bumpy ride, Andaxia drifted off to sleep.

/\

In a cafeteria carved carved out of the heart of the Mountain, Jenni smiled down at her new daughter sleeping in her lap, even if Andaxia’s bulk made eating the surprisingly good lunch awkward. Luminara (when she had called Jenni _sensei_ and Jenni had insisted on her first name—though not rejecting the title outright—she had done the same) had offered to feed her, and from her superbly hidden merriment (matching that of the rest of the Bond listening in on the conversation, though her Bondmates didn’t try to hide theirs) Jenni’s resulting blush had apparently been intended. Now, between bites, Jenni asked, “You’ll make sure Asajj’s letter gets to Knight Vos?”

“Yes, I will,” Luminara agreed, “though I’m not sure why Asajj didn’t simply send it to him once you arrived and learned he wasn’t here. At that point the letter would go directly into his account without passing through the HoloNet, she wouldn’t need to worry about it being intercepted.”

Jenni shrugged. “An overabundance of caution, really. I don’t want to sound like we don’t trust the Council, but ... we don’t really trust the Council—not to be busybodies about this, at least. They don’t really trust us _that_ much, Asajj has doubts about how much they trust Knight Vos, and we _are_ talking about poaching one of your more effective knights with a rather unusual skill set, even if it would happen a few years down the line. But it’s his business, not theirs.

“Speaking of something that _is_ the Council’s business, just what did you decide about the control codes for those abominations we found in Padme’s download? Since we haven’t heard anything about them in the news we’re guessing you agreed with us in general, but ...”

Luminara took her last couple of bites and picked up her cup of tea, no longer cold. She gazed down at it for a long moment before sighing and taking a sip. “Master Yoda agreed with your assessment that it is the will of the Force that information on the Sith abominations we fought—and the codes that can _sometimes_ control them—not be released yet. We _also_ agree that the nest needs to be destroyed as soon as possible, after reviewing the files on their life cycle the thought of those alchemical monstrosities—Master Plo labeled them ‘xenomorphs—escaping into the wider galaxy is enough to turn the Council’s hair white ... those of us that have hair, anyway. That’s why, _if_ Obi-wan finishes his current mission before the _Frithjof_ gets here—you arrived weeks earlier than expected—he’ll be going with you. Even if it is a simple ‘search and destroy’ mission without much ‘search’ involved, having a member of the Council along will demonstrate that the Order is taking this seriously when the inevitable questions arise in the Senate why we didn’t let everyone know about them earlier. And it’ll give him a chance to catch up with Anakin, Ahsoka, and Padme.” She shot Jenni a reproving frown, though her inner flame danced with laughter. “No poaching!”

Jenni giggled, as much at the instant distaste coming through the Bond inspired by the half-serious warning. “No chance of that! The ‘squick’ factor would be _way_ too high. Besides, outside of a little nostalgia, Master Kenobi is perfectly happy where he is. Though he may have a little more time even if the _Frithjof_ arrives today. You’re right that we travelled fast—I was navigating and apparently the Tao wants us moving _qiockly_ —but we don’t want to head back out for the Outer Rim until Barriss’s boy is born. Apailana made sure the _Tom Joad_ has everything we’re likely to need, but we’re here now so why take chances? And even as fast as we moved, Barriss is already a couple weeks overdue.” Jenni giggled again. “Barriss is getting cranky about it, she wants it _over_.”

Motion at the cafeteria entrance caught her eye, and she glanced over to find Knight Taurendi holding a pack and herding a small mob of younglings. “And it looks like class is out.” She moved her shoulder, gently rocking Andaxia’s head. “Come on, sleepy-head, time to say goodbye to your friends so we can be on our way.”

The girl blinked up at her for a moment before smiling shyly. Then the thundering herd was upon them, and Andaxia slid off her lap to start hugging her excited friends. Jenni rose to her feet and reached out to accept the pack from a Knight Taurendi that by all rights ought to have been rolling her eyes at her young charges’ behavior, then took one last look around. She hadn’t been _hugely_ surprised to find that the Order had set up a cafeteria in the same location the Bonds had had one ninety millennia ago—the original layout and location had made the coincidence no surprise—but she could still remember her ninth birthday celebrated with several other children in other Bonds close to her age who’d happened to be in the Mountain that day, in a corner not far away from where she stood. The chatter of the children surrounding her now even felt much the same. Though the large screens designed to appear like windows looking out over the rocky crags surrounding the Mountain were like nothing they’d had.

She didn’t realize she was softly crying until her new daughter threw her arms around her waist and buried her face in her stomach, and she was jolted from her recollection to sense the concern and comfort coming from the Bond. She’d insisted that she be the one to deliver the letter and pick up their new addition, and that she come alone—a decision that made sense enough, considering everyone else’s ... complicated ... relationship with the Order, that the rest of the Bond acquiesced—but their poorly-hidden worries about her mental state hadn’t been unreasonable, either.

Luminara laid a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Jenni?”

Jenni shook her head. “I’m fine, just old memories. I don’t think I’ll be coming back to the Mountain very often, though.” She accepted the tissue Knight Taurendi offered her (of course, a crèche mother would carry a supply with her), wiped her cheeks, and bent to pick up Andaxia. “Come on, it’s time for you to meet your _other_ new parents.” She hid a wince as she realized that if she, Barriss, and Ahsoka were going to break off to form their own Bond they were going to have to do it _right now_. With a normal Dancing child they might have been able to put off forming additional parental bonds for a time while they worked things out—with a natural empath, not so much.

_Ah well, Ahsoka’s pregnancy would be by artificial insemination anyway, once_ _Apailana_ _’s scientists figure out the data we dumped on them, I guess mine can be as well. And me and Ahsoka did fine as a pair for almost a year, Anakin and Padme will do all right— No, they won’t. If Padme dies Anakin won’t be swept into the Void, he’ll_ dive _in, and there wouldn’t be anyone to pull him out. The only Dancer I know of that Padme and Anakin know well enough to join with is Master Kenobi, and from everyone’s reactions when I hinted at it that simply isn’t happening—as much because of his own nature as the nature of his ... complex ... relationship with Anakin. And there’s no way we’re breaking a bond with Andaxia once it’s formed, not until she’s ready to join an adult Bond of her own. It looks like we’re going to be stuck with each other_. Not a prospect she had a problem with, really, she would have missed Anakin and Padme desperately even if they’d still been sharing a ship.

_Sharing a ship. It’ll be odd, having two different Bonds on the_ Tom Joad _. I wonder if_ _Apailana_ _would be willing to fund another ship? Sure, armed and armored freighters like the_ Tom Joad _aren’t cheap, but it’ll only be one more, once Asajj, Threefer, and Keda get acclimated_. Though she could envisage a steadily growing number of ships to accompany a steadily growing number of Bonds, even if she wasn't sure yet how that was going to happen. (Though it _was_ going to happen, and by the time their growing number of children became adults _—_ she _was_ going to see to it, whatever the Tao wanted.) She wondered if any other planets might like to help out, Padme’s contacts from her time as a Senator might come in handy....

/oOo\

On her hands and knees on the bed, Jenni didn’t try to suppress her squeals as Anakin standing behind her beside the bed jackhammered his hips against her ass, their thighs slick with her juices, her breasts jiggling with every thrust despite his hands on her hips holding her in place. As she and Andaxia had been returning to the _Tom Joad_ , the Bond had decided that before their new daughter bonded with her other mothers and father they’d have one last orgiastic fling—after that bonding they’d be limited to single couples at a time; keeping a single couple’s shared pleasure from echoing down that parental bond would be difficult enough for all of them but Jenni (none of the others had tried much to suppress that same ‘echoing’ with each other and so didn’t have much practice), with the kind of pleasure feedback loop they enjoyed when _all five_ were involved it would simply be impossible. At least, for the foreseeable future.

So Ahsoka, Barriss, and Padme were in what was officially Jenni and Ahsoka’s quarters while in what was officially Padme and Anakin’s quarters Jenni got Anakin’s undivided attention. Not that the separation meant anything other than none of the other women could poach Anakin. With a little concentration (admittedly difficult thanks to the relentless pounding that had her panting, squealing, and begging for more, but after six years with two Bonds she had plenty of practice), Jenni could taste Barriss’s juices on Ahsoka’s lips and tongue as they teased their Bondmate’s folds and probed into her cleft; see through Barriss’s half-lidded eyes the flush on Padme’s face and spreading down her neck and across her jiggling breasts as she bounced on the dildo protruding up from Ahsoka’s cleft; feel every ridge of the large fake cock has it slid in and out of Padme’s stretched and dripping sheath, the tight grip of Padme’s and Barriss’s hands as they held each other up, the pressure of lips and dueling tongues when they leaned toward each other and shared a kiss.

But if she and Anakin gave the Tao as much of an opportunity as they could, then perhaps—just perhaps—its currents would finally sweep Jenni to the baby she’d been expecting after Anakin and Padme had joined the Bond ... until Barriss became pregnant, anyway. From what Jenni had learned growing up (after her hormones kicked in and ‘those icky adult emotions’ she’d been regularly if dimly sensing through the parental bonds changed to ‘when can _I_ join the fun?’), the Tao seemed to prefer not to overburden a Bond with too many babies at one time. And of course neither she, Yua, nor Sacagawea had become pregnant during the four years between the Void Slaves’ coup and the ritual that had killed every Dancer on Earth and trapped her in a ‘Force Vortex’ for ninety millennia. But now that Barriss was about to give birth, just maybe—

Her distant musings broke off as Anakin hammered into her once more and held there, then backed up, his hands on her hips pulling her with him. She floated, buoyed up by Anakin’s control of the currents sweeping around them, and those currents caressed her as they gently rotated her around the cock still stretching out her sheath. When she could see her Bondmate’s face he was actually looking at hers rather than her heaving breasts, and he smiled gently at the questioning ‘emote’ she sent through the Bond. “ _If this is the time we make a baby, I want to see your face as it happens_.”

Happy agreement from the others came through their bond—if somewhat amused and more than a little distracted—and Jenni felt happy tears gather in her eyes and run down the side of her face and into her blue-white hair now dangling beneath her ... and then Anakin flexed his hips, and the moment was washed away by a new wave of pleasure. But even as her thoughts scattered under the rising pleasure pulsing through her with each thrust of Anakin’s pistoning hips, even when _Padme’s_ orgasm exploding into their bond set off the usual chain reaction through everyone else, even through the fire of her own orgasm as Jenni felt Anakin’s seed pulsing into the depths of her sheath, filling her and squeezing out to ooze down her ass cheeks and drip to the floor, she managed to keep most of the emotional storm that had accompanied the physical one from out of her bond with their new daughter currently in the nursery getting acquainted with her new brother and sister ... and disgusted with what she _was_ picking up.

As Anakin allowed the currents to recede, lowering her back down to the bed, she began to laugh. Her laughter intensified at the rest of the Bond’s confusion. “ _Andaxia thinks we’re ‘icky’._ ”

The others’ laughter joined hers Jenni’s “ _Give it another couple of years and she’ll have a brother and sister to commiserate with_ ,” Padme added, to fresh laughter—laughter that cut off suddenly at Barriss’s pained surprise. “ _Barriss, what’s wrong?_ ” Ahsoka asked.

“ _I’m not sure, but I think I just had my first contraction_.”

Everyone waited, focused through the Bond on Barriss’s every physical sensation. (They _all_ were very much aware what it felt like to be in the latter stages of pregnancy, their Bondmate had insisted they all ‘enjoy’ it for awhile so they’d know what she was going through.) The tension grew as minute after minute passed by, until—“ _Oh!_ ” They all shared it that time, as if her entire abdomen had tensed up.

“ _Yup, that feels like a contraction to me_ ,” Jenni agreed, “ _it looks like Tutso has_ finally _decided to join us. Let’s get you down to the infirmary and Zeethree, and call Luminara. As doubtful as she might be about becoming an honorary grandmother, if she doesn’t get here on time she’ll never forgive us_.”


End file.
